


refractions: silence into birdsong

by qaara (ohroses)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Haku (Naruto) Lives, Naruto-typical trauma mishandling, Suicidal Thoughts, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:46:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23518660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohroses/pseuds/qaara
Summary: Haku survives, and that means he's Naruto's friend now. Forever. It's a pretty good deal, all things considered.
Relationships: Haku & Gaara, Haku & Haruno Sakura, Haku & Momochi Zabuza, Haku & Rock Lee, Haku & Uchiha Sasuke, Haku & Umino Iruka, Haku & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 23
Kudos: 115





	refractions: silence into birdsong

**Author's Note:**

> This is... a story that possessed me these past few days, and I couldn't rest until I wrote it.
> 
> Fundamentally, I believe Naruto's plot relies on people not getting better, but it's been a LONG time since I watched Naruto. So, this is going to read like something being braided into the Part I canon. 
> 
> Alternate title was "naruto on ice." Be grateful I talked myself out of it.

The sound was bursting around him as the pain began, but still it was so fragile. If he listened past the impact of ice into the ground, of bodies to the earth, and the blood into the gleaming mirrors, he could hear the sound of the ice itself. He could never tell, not really, if it was because of his bloodline, or his power, or if ice really did sound like birdsong.

But the birds sang, or the ice did, and the snow fell around him in that last moment. He was smiling, he knew, because he had done it. Finally, after so long, he had come to the moment he’d always waited for.

This curse, this damnation he’d visited on his mother, his father, his family, his own soul—it was finally over, and it had saved the one who saved him.

 _Yes_ , Haku decided, _the ice does sing_.

He tried to watch for the birds, just in case, even at the end, loathe to trust the whim and hope of his heart. But he couldn't lift or turn his head, and he couldn’t see the sky. He heard the songs, but his heart felt the ice—

The last thing he remembered was the snow, gentle and silent, beautiful in a way he hadn’t noticed in a long time. The ice still made sounds like birds as it shattered around him, and he couldn’t help but feel like this was perfect. _Though_ , he thought as the light left his eyes and the pain faded, _he told me to be his weapon, not his shield. I suppose, in a sense, I have failed._

Death was ugly; he knew this. He’d brought death and seen death for so long, he had seen what bodies did in their final moments, had seen what proud, noble people became before the end. He avoided it, so deep was his hatred of the cruelty and hideousness of death.

But now it felt unbearably ugly, more hideous than anything he’d ever seen or felt or done before. It hadn’t been this ugly since he was a child and his mother’s broken body collapsed horribly, like cloth slipping from the window pain and letting the cold back in, and he had destroyed his father’s tearstained face without hesitation. He had never felt something like that since, but he felt it now. Or something like it.

It took a moment of gritting his teeth and fighting sobs, but he realized, too late, that this wasn’t ugliness. It was pain. The fear washed away, and so did the shreds of grief, as the familiar sensation of an open wound made itself known. He could feel it in his middle, all the way through to his back, and then in little rivers all over his body. He followed them with his mind, and in his little journey over the terrain of wounds and pains, he found a hand holding his own.

Perplexed, sore, and aching, he tried to pull away, but the hand was insistent. He pulled again, ignoring the pain, and heard a squawk of surprise, clearly bleary with sleep. He filed all of this away, but another wave of intense pain hit him, beginning in his middle and emanating outwards, following the rivers everywhere, and a hand patted his own with a gentle desperation. He choked on his next cry of pain, but swallowed it at the last second, in the most painful way, and the pain became too much.

He let himself fall back asleep. For it was sleep, not death, that beckoned him now.

When he awoke next, it was in a bed, in a strange room. He must have been in a bed before, too, but he hadn’t had the presence of mind to notice. The room looked empty, and strangely… clean. Everything gleamed white like the snow, but lifelessly so. Nothing sang, nothing called to him, and the scent of the place was offensive in its emptiness. Haku pushed himself up tentatively, carefully, but he felt no intense pain. His body was sore, to be sure, but the overwhelming agony was gone.

His hand was free now, too, though it peeked out over the covers as though someone had pulled it out and placed it there. He flexed his fingers, chasing the phantom sensation, but it bore no particular marks of the one who had held it. He gave up on that path and let his eye wander around the room.

It was mostly for show, because he was sure he was being watched, and he wanted to appear weak and caught off-guard to whoever it was. There was no need to reveal that he had been registering every detail, every glimpse, every clue, from the moment the pain had overwhelmed him into waking the first time.

The window was open, but it was barred. He pushed himself out of the bed and onto the floor. It was cold, but he could deal with that, and he wasn’t naked, but he was dressed in a strange robe of a thin, flimsy, irritating material. He limped to the window, and just as he expected, the door creaked open as soon as he reached the bars.

He could have rushed the door, but he was unarmed. He prided himself on his abilities, but part of those abilities were his instincts. And his instincts told him to be wary of the man who stepped inside. It was a Leaf shinobi, that much was clear, but it was not one he recognized from the bridge. The window had only revealed rooftops of a civilian quarter, so he might not be in the Leaf village itself, it was hard to tell, but the shinobi in the doorway felt familiar. It was the way he cloaked himself and his power with a mild manner and an empty hint here and there that there should be a smile, vaguely, on his face.

He reminded Haku of that copying shinobi, the one with the false bloodline, from the forests. This man was probably hiding something, and Haku needed to stay alive long enough to find out what it was. But the man merely smiled. Haku couldn’t read it, but on the surface, it looked apologetic and kind. He had a face for smiling, his mouth looked like it smiled easily, and even the scar across his nose seemed lighthearted, gentle, somehow.

“I was under strict orders to be here so that you wouldn’t wake up alone,” the man said. “Looks like I failed. It’ll be hell for me if you tell Naruto, so let’s just imagine that you woke up to my warm, caring smile, and so on.”

“Naruto,” he muttered; the truth hit him as a phantom patted his hand gently. He clenched it to ward away the memory. “Was it him?”

“It usually is, but you will have to be more specific.”

“Was it him who brought me here?”

“It was all of them, actually.” The man reached into a pouch at his thigh and pulled out a piece of paper, carefully folded and labelled with his own name. He held it out, but Haku made no move to take it. “Sakura became quite an advocate for you when she realized you had taken excruciating care to keep the boys alive.”

Haku could not help but glare, unable to bother hiding his ire behind his usual masks. “Release me. You have no right to keep me here. I have committed no crime.”

“Believe me,” the man sighed, flopping down into the seat by the bedside. “I know. You made sure of that, didn’t you?”

Haku waited before he could bring himself to approach the man, but when he did, it was with his hand outstretched. The paper, when it was handed to him, was unexpectedly heavy. There were about three individual pages folded within, and when he unfolded them, it became clear why. Naruto, in all his endless generosity, had included diagrams, cartoons, maps, and--- and this made something inside him seize up--- a note from someone with infinitely neater, more precise handwriting. Sasuke.

Haku sighed, putting the note on the little shelf by the bed, and sat down on the edge. It appeared that this was absolutely the village hidden in the leaves, and he was trapped.

“I need to go back.”

“I can’t let you do that. Just hold on a little longer; Naruto will be back soon. When he comes back—”

Slowly, like the snow falling on his face, and like the realization that the ice could sing, Haku realized the truth. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” 

The man was silent. Haku brushed tears from his eyes in two rapid movements, hoping with a futile desperation that they went unnoticed. “Zabuza’s been killed, hasn’t he? Otherwise, I wouldn’t be—” A sob broke through the words and he desperately bit his lips to strangle it. It didn’t work. If Zabuza was alive, Haku wouldn’t be here alone.

The man came to sit beside him as Haku tried not to weep, and he patted Haku’s shoulder a little awkwardly, in a way that felt too kind for a stranger. This must be the one Naruto thought of that day in the woods, when they talked about protecting the ones they loved, and Naruto’s dreams. Haku wiped his face dry and pulled away from the man. “I’ll wait for Naruto.”

“Read his note,” the man insisted. “I’m Umino Iruka, by the way.”

“I know,” Haku said, though he didn’t. He didn’t know the man’s name, but he knew who he was. He felt desperately angry, and he wanted the man to leave before something ugly crawled out of him and ruined Naruto’s happiness. “Please leave me alone now.”

He grieved Zabuza silently, because Zabuza didn’t care about things like death and pain. But then he read the note, and in Naruto’s childish handwriting, briefly, there was a mention of Zabuza’s pain at his passing. Haku, torn between disbelief and elation, reread that passage over and over.

The note was charming. In it was a primer of sorts, written in a lighthearted but thoughtful way that only Naruto, who desperately wanted to be helpful and loved, would write.

Haku unfolded the note slowly, skimming quickly through the contents. There was a crude map of the village with only three locations marked (a ramen stand, Naruto’s apartment, and a drawing of Haku labeled ‘you are here’) and a quick description of Zabuza’s final moments, written with the care and focus of someone who knew they were imparting terrible news and wished they did not have to. He skipped that part, swallowing hard, and turned to a series of drawings detailing how much fun Haku would have if he did not leave.

Haku did not leave, but that was because he could not leave. He waited, hoping and dreading that Naruto would come through those doors and tell him, clearly, what had happened that day on the bridge.

Because inside that ridiculous letter was written: “Zabuza needed you to know at the end that he did feel regret, and that he knew what you sacrificed for him. He wanted you to live. When he realized you were still breathing, he called out for us to save you in the end, and he cried for you. I swore to make sure you wouldn’t be alone. So, stay! And live! Our deal is off.”

He was allowed to take walks, eventually, though he did not enjoy taking them. He was escorted, and though the escort was usually Mr. Umino Iruka, it was not pleasant. Umino spoke mostly of Naruto, and while this was not a terrible topic for them, it inevitably brought pain to Haku. His own losses were still too raw, too painful, and the sight of Naruto’s beloved person so happy, so proud— It hurt. In an ugly, horrible way.

No, he did not like taking walks. But it was important, the healers told him, to move as regularly as possible before he could be cleared to leave. And for an unmentioned reason, it was becoming very clear to Haku that they wanted him to be cleared to leave. He mentioned this to Umino once, as they toured the little garden on the premises, but Umino had just smiled and told him to be patient.

Haku’s first impression was correct; the man was everything Haku imagined teachers should be. Kind, thoughtful, and mild. But his warmth was ultimately shallow, which gave Haku the distinct impression that he was not fully welcome.

He did not even know if he wanted to stay. The “letter” from Naruto knew a sacred place on his bedside, this was true, and no one dared move it, but it didn’t mean anything. A healer had tried, once, yes, and Haku had had to explain why he had snarled at another human to Umino Iruka, and then he was subjected to the probing of a healer who specialized in traumas. But they did not understand. Naruto’s note kept Haku rooted firmly where he was.

So, no, Haku did not know what he wanted to do, nor what he should do, in fact all he knew for certain was that Naruto would be here soon, if he waited for him. More than that, he did not know or understand what to do with Zabuza’s final order.

Live.

He tucked his face into his knees and wished Naruto would come.

Which was why, when a strange boy around Naruto’s age was taken through the halls on a stretcher, bleeding out slowly from deep wounds on every limb, then another, then yet another, then a little girl, breathing shallowly and crying, and then finally Sakura herself was brought through, bandaged and limping, Haku became acquainted with a very unfamiliar, horrible, terrible fear. He wanted to go to Sakura and ask—But his eyes couldn’t meet hers for long, not after what he had done, and soon she was led away.

She barely seemed to notice him, but Haku could not leave that hallway, even after she was gone, though the healer escorting him urged him to please continue moving.

Naruto would be next. Naruto—if those children were getting hurt here, in whatever way it was happening, then Naruto would be next. He remembered when he first met the boy, when Naruto was exhausted and asleep, without anyone nearby to look out for him, so easy to kill— If it hadn’t been Haku who found him, Naruto would have been killed _there_. The thought was sharp in his mind.

“Naruto.” He shook the memory of his hand around the boy’s neck, and turned to the healer, nearly pleading. “A boy named Naruto, he’s that girl’s teammate— What’s happened to—”

“Sakura is fine,” a voice sighed from behind him. “Though I am touched by your concern. It’s a mild head injury, sustained during her Chunin examination.”

He stood by silently as Umino Iruka thanked the healer. They were left alone, and it was only when Umino took his elbow and guided him back to his room, down the long hallway, did Haku realize he was shaking. He fought to control himself, deeply ashamed, as Umino stood beside him calmly and let him regain his nerves.

“That was a reaction unexpected of you,” Umino said mildly, damnably.

Haku winced, his legs only barely feeling normal again. Umino guided him to the bed and pushed gently on Haku’s shoulder to make him sit down. Haku did not meet his eyes.

“I don’t mean to overstep, but I am glad you care about Naruto’s well-being, it makes my job a lot easier. He is fine; trust me, I would not be here if he were not.”

“You said that. That he was all right.”

Umino leaned back on his heels. “Just reminding you,” he said.

“What’s your job?”

“I’m evaluating you,” Umino said with a kind smile. “I’m not best-suited for the task, but Naruto insisted that I do it. So, I pulled a few strings.”

Haku put the image of the first boy’s broken body from his mind, focusing instead on what Umino had revealed. “Have I been evaluated?”

“Not formally,” Umino answered. “I’m only an instructor. But as far as I am concerned, you are no danger to Naruto. The Hokage will hear that directly from me.”

Haku bit his lip. “Because I didn’t kill anyone on the bridge?”

“Because you’re so scared for them.” Umino clasped his shoulder firmly. “But yes, it helps that you took pains not to kill them.”

“Sakura did not stop to speak with me.”

“Head injury. Don’t take it to heart.”

Haku nodded, his heart untwisting a little, and the conversation turned to a more pleasant topic; Naruto’s victory.

They checked the wound daily for the first week, but then as the pain eased and walking became easier, the wound became less of a concern. It still hurt, its presence was absolutely felt, but he was told it was a phantom pain, a pain his mind conjured to avoid feeling the pain it actually felt. A shadow and an illusion.

“You’re lucky it didn’t ruin your spine,” a healer said once, inspecting the knotted scar tissue. “That boy— His spine is basically a lost cause.”

“Which boy?”

The healer continued changing his bandages, ignoring the question. Haku thought he could guess which boy, so he did not push the matter.

He dreamt of birdsong, of ice falling, and of Zabuza’s hands. Or someone else’s— Birdsong, but twisted around and ruined, brought back into screaming. A familiar sound, a blinding light—

Angry birdsong, hands in his chest, and someone screaming his name. Zabuza at the window, his hand outstretched and the bars gone, beckoning him to follow. Haku nearly did. But there was another phantom holding his hand, and he could not bring himself to let go.

A hand on his. He knew that feeling. Haku turned his face towards the sensation and opened his eyes to see Naruto drooling on the side of his hospital bed. Haku ignored the sensation of loose strands sticking to his own neck and face and pushed Naruto’s golden hair back from his forehead with his free hand.

He was so young. He was so small, so skinny, so sharp around the edges and corners, and so soft too. He looked like Haku had felt before Zabuza, desperately little and starving. Was Haku ever _this_ small? And there were bruises on Naruto’s face, and cuts on his cheek, and his hand—

Haku sat up at the sight of Naruto’s hand, still holding his own, and struggled for a moment to open his eyes against sleep to see more clearly.

When he could see more with clarity, though no less uncomfortably, he took the small hand holding his and brought it up into the moonlight. Naruto’s hand was riddled with bite-marks, deep ones, red and swollen, and Haku felt an overwhelming pressure in his throat at the sight of them.

He recognized those marks. He knew the summons shinobi trained themselves to bring forth, the ways one could overdo the blood sacrifice in the early, weaker stages of training. The cuts along the boy’s thumb were the same Zabuza had, the same the Copy Ninja would have if anyone thought to check, the same— But these were infinitely worse. These looked like they were done madly, incessantly, without restraint. There were marks everywhere, like desperation had driven the child to bite deeper into his own flesh than would ever be necessary for a summon.

“Naruto,” he whispered, clutching the boy’s injured hand tightly to his chest. “Naruto wake up.” Naruto stirred for a moment before his eyes opened.

“Huh?” The boy looked up slowly, and then he shot up like a flash of light, his smile growing steadily into a grin. “HAKU!”

Haku shushed him, not without a smile, because he could not fight the smile around Naruto, not even after every terrible thing that had happened, that Haku had done to him, that he’d asked of him.

Naruto’s smile did not dampen, and he whispered Haku’s name again with that same delight. “I’m so happy to see you, Haku,” Naruto whispered loudly, as though no one ever taught him how. “I thought you had died, on the bridge, and I kind of went crazy.”

“Crazy? In the same way that you defeated me?”

“Haha, yeah. Forgot about that bit. I’m sorry.”

The boy had secrets, it was certain, and they were probably dangerous, but Haku couldn’t help but smile. Even fanged, bloody, and roaring, the boy had been…

“Such a hero,” Haku sighed. Naruto tilted his head to the side in confusion. “Don’t apologize to me. I am the one who owes you apologies, Naruto.”

“No, no it’s all right. Don’t apologize.”

“I want to.”

“Well, don’t,” Naruto whispered, still loudly. “I’m just glad you’re alive. I’m glad that I didn’t kill you, and I’m glad Zabuza helped us save you. But, uhm. Like I’m so happy to see you and I’m so glad you’re happy to see me too, but my hand--”

Haku looked down and saw that he was still clutching Naruto’s injured hand, probably too tightly if Naruto looked that awkward about the contact. He released it. “I’m so sorry,” Haku whispered. “Forgive me. Allow me to help you clean and bind these.”

“What do you--? Oh, that. No that’s just regular training stuff,” Naruto snorted. “It’s nothing. Look.” He lifted his hand to his mouth, those sharp teeth ready to rip into the flesh there, and Haku shoved his hand over Naruto’s open and unexpectedly dangerous mouth.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m really good at it now; I can summon a friend to keep us company!”

“You should not have to draw this much blood to summon anything. Do you understand? If it is not working, you cannot repeat the same—”

“Yeah, I know. I tried a different thing each time. I’m not stupid.”

Haku looked up sharply. Naruto wasn’t looking at him, and he didn’t look particularly bothered. He looked like he was delivering an oft-repeated mantra, bored and unmoved. Properly ashamed, Haku ducked his head again. “I’m sorry, of course you’re not stupid.”

“Uh… No, it’s ok. I didn’t mean… Anyway, don’t worry. They heal fast. They’ll be gone really soon.”

“They heal?”

“Yeah; fast. Usually they don’t last more than an hour. These are kinda deep, so they’ll take the morning, probably. Don’t worry, I just bit too hard when I fell down the canyon.”

“All right,” Haku said, electing to trust his little visitor and ignore the clouds of confusion that followed the kid around. But then a question came to mind. “Why didn’t you come to visit sooner?”

“I didn’t think you’d want to see me.”

“Oh.” Haku considered this for a moment, and then dismissed it as idiotic. “That’s idiocy. I was very worried about you. I asked about you often.”

“Yeah,” Naruto said shyly. “Iruka said. But after everything… I thought you wouldn’t want to see me.”

“But if Umino told you… then why did you think that I wouldn’t? Were you really at these exams for the past week?”

“Uhm. A lot happened, and I kind of got distracted. And I really did think that if you saw me, you’d remember— I thought I would remind you of bad things. I did drop by, but you were asleep.”

Haku remembered that; it had been Naruto’s hand on his, then.

“Is that why I have not seen anyone?”

“You saw Iruka.”

Haku thought, for a moment, about how Naruto might have gotten not just his beloved person to obey him, but the Copy Ninja and his two headstrong teammates as well. “So, you told everyone to avoid me? And they did?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Was that wrong? I thought if you saw us you might think we were still enemies, or that we had taken you prisoner.”

“I’m alive, in a Leaf hospital, and your old teacher keeps me company nearly every day. No one has accosted me, questioned me, or harmed me. I figured out, eventually, that I was not a prisoner.”

“Yeah, I told Ibiki to leave you alone when I saw him.”

“You told who?”

“Ibiki! He’s like the head spy or whatever. He tested us in the first half. I gave him a talking to. You should have been there. But I guess you’re already a Chunin, basically.”

Haku blinked at Naruto, trying to find his footing, losing it as soon as he thought he understood what the kid was saying.

“You know, the Chunin exams? Those are exams we gotta take if we wanna be… not genin anymore. It’s fun, but there are really bad guys out there. Some guy bit Sasuke; his name is Orochimaru. Anyway, he tortures people. Ibiki, not Orochimaru. He told me about it yesterday when I saw him. Ibiki; I saw Ibiki— and he said one time someone took a spear and shoved it right into his left arm and hung him up—”

“Right,” Haku muttered, realizing he was trying to get sense out of a sleepy, excited eleven-year-old child and giving it up as a lost cause. “Wait, a man like that listened to you?”

“I told him you had been through a trauma, so Iruka helped. Iruka’s on the warpath about you.”

“What,” Haku asked, with some exasperation, “does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Kakashi says it about him. Last time Iruka went on the warpath was like a week or so ago, maybe. He yelled at Kakashi in front of the Hokage and everyone about… stuff. Iruka does that. He gets really scary about things. Like one time someone tried to kill me, and he took a whole thing in the back to protect me; he’s really cool and strong. Probably as strong as you—”

“Naruto,” Haku interrupted. “Please, one thing at a time.”

“Iruka says you’re doing better, and that you haven’t asked to leave since the first time you asked.”

“I haven’t.”

“He said you… wanted to talk to me.” Naruto bit back a yawn between his words.

“It can wait. Naruto,” Haku said, very carefully. “Do you want to sleep? I am not tired. I may go for a walk, and you can sleep here.”

“If you go for a walk, I’ll come with you,” Naruto said, but the effect was spoiled as he swallowed what was now clearly a yawn. Haku shook his head fondly.

“Come, Naruto. You can sleep here. It’s not good for you to sleep that way. It’s a wonder Umino permitted this.”

“Didn’t,” Naruto mumbled, and yawned again. “Snuck outta my place.”

“All right,” Haku said, lifting the covers and moving to the side. “I won’t go; I’ll be beside you.”

Naruto, suddenly obedient under the oncoming weight of sleep and the promise that he was not dislodging Haku entirely, crawled onto the bed and deposited himself gingerly on the edge of the mattress. He fell asleep as his head hit the pillow, and Haku leaned over, taking a slow breath and gathering the child in his arms. The pain was manageable, but it might have been because Naruto was disturbingly light and strangely fragile, like a bird.

When Naruto was more comfortably far from the edge, Haku covered him with the blanket and smoothed his hair back from his face. Were the bruises he’d noticed earlier fading? Hadn’t something like that happened on the bridge?

Naruto slept on, and Haku took the boy’s place in the chair, dozing off as the moon moved across the window and the sun rose in its place. Morning came, and he woke to an amused smile and a familiar scar.

“Mr. Umino,” Haku mumbled, a little startled in spite of himself. “Sorry. How are you?” Haku pushed his hair out of his face and tried to make himself look a little more presentable. He hadn’t seen a mirror in a long time, but he had it on good authority that he typically looked, well, fine.

“Good morning, Haku.” Umino lifted a bag in the air, and a fragrant scent rose to meet Haku’s curiosity. “I bring breakfast. But you know, among other things, you can just call me Iruka. We’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other now.”

“Among other things?”

“The other thing was going to be a speech about not letting Naruto walk all over you.”

“He did not. He wanted to sleep on this chair. I had to trick him into sleeping on the bed.”

“Oh, I can imagine that,” Umino sighed. “He’s a truly selfless child when his heart is involved. Beware of that.”

Haku watched as Umino rummaged in the bag and began to remove small boxes of dumplings and dipping sauces. His stomach rumbled, and when Umino looked up at the sound Haku blushed and looked away, praying it wouldn’t be mentioned. Umino’s visits were relatively more welcome now, but the fact that his visits often broke up the monotony of hospital food absolutely helped his standing in Haku’s regard.

Naruto seemed to come awake with the scent of the food, and he sat up, stretching towards it without a word. Umino only sighed and handed him a small bowl and a pair of chopsticks. Haku watched, fascinated, as Naruto appeared to eat in his sleep. Umino laughed, fondly, and handed Naruto a napkin. Astounded, Haku observed as Naruto actually dabbed at the excess sauce about his mouth.

“He’s incredible.” Umino handed Haku a bowl piled high with dumplings, never looking away from Naruto’s great feats of sleep-eating. “Isn’t he?”

“Yes,” Haku agreed, watching as Naruto crooned sleepily into a dumpling, broadcasting his happiness without fear or embarrassment. “Incredible.”

Naruto did fully awaken eventually, and with that rising awareness came the truth of his visit.

“I forgot to mention that you’re actually leaving today.”

Haku stared at him for a moment, unsure of what to say. “Leaving…. Where am I going?”

Naruto laughed. “You’re coming to stay with me at my place.”

“You mean...” Haku looked at Umino apologetically, “you mean Mr. Umino’s home, I suppose.”

“No,” said Umino but there was something heavy behind his words. “Naruto lives alone. I live nearby, and I will check in when I can, but he lives alone. You will be staying with him for the time being.”

“Yeah, it’s because they’re still watching you. Ex-rogue shinobi, hunter impersonator, and everything. Also, you were hired by the mafia. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be fun!”

Haku looked between them, trying to see what lay underneath. There was nothing more to what Naruto was saying, not intentionally, but there was a layer or two of meaning in what Umino had revealed. After a moment, when he realized that he would be getting nowhere at all trying to solve that mystery now, Haku met Naruto’s eyes and nodded.

With a cry of delight and a great explosion of hospital sheets, Naruto nearly knocked Haku over in an embrace that was nearly all bones. Carefully, gingerly, Haku held Naruto as he vibrated in his excitement.

He did not know what else to do. 

The wound did leave a scar. It was not as bad as it had been when it was healing, but it was there. Haku saw it clearly for the first time when he was finally able to look in a mirror, that first morning in Naruto’s cramped, damp bathroom. It looked fine, surprisingly, for a wound that had gone all the way through him and burnt at that.

Sometimes, when he looked at it, he heard birdsong transforming into rage. But it was not hard to look at, not in that sense. He did not care about what had happened to him that day on the bridge. Rather, when he looked at it, he felt a deep, terrible shame.

Inexplicably, Zabuza was still gone in the end, in spite of this scar and all it had cost him. Haku did not know how it happened, nor who had done it, but he knew that if he asked, he would be told. So, he did not ask.

It felt, still, impossible that Zabuza was actually gone. Haku knew he must be, or at least—

It was either that Zabuza had truly died, just as they said, or that Zabuza had abandoned him. It would not be the first time Zabuza faked his death to throw an animal off his scent. The first possibility hurt, but the other shook him in a way that felt worse than death, and worse than grief.

So, given the choice, he grieved.

He would dream, too, when the pain was still strong and the wound still wet with blood, that one night the bars on the window would slide off and Zabuza would step through and wordlessly gesture for Haku to follow. It was half a dream, half a desperate wish, something he conjured up to ease the pain of the now empty world when he woke. It was the grief he chose, manifesting at night in a phantom.

Haku did not know what he might have done if this phantom did come to life

Because sometimes dream-Haku followed, stepping through the window in the strange clothes they dressed him in, and sometimes he turned away and opened his eyes to gaze at the empty white wall in the darkness until the phantom disappeared.

But the night he left the hospital, the dream got worse. That first night in Naruto’s cramped, tiny little one-room home, it felt as though Zabuza was really, truly there, waiting for Haku to follow, to turn back around, to acknowledge him. That night was the worst, and Haku found that the space between waking and sleeping sucked the courage from him and left him hollow. Because it felt like there truly was a real presence at his back, waiting for him.

The next night, Haku learned not to turn his back to the window. Instead, when it came, he lay still in the darkness and watched the phantom beckon until the sun rose, frozen and unable to move.

The nights were unpleasant, but the day felt more like a dream than the terrifying presence of the specter in the room. One felt truly real, physically true, and the other—

The first day out of the hospital was a strange, slow, glimpse into a life that wasn’t ever meant to be his, a life that picked itself up and continued on as though Zabuza had never mattered, as though Haku belonged in that dingy little apartment, away from the mountains and the lakes, and the forests.

Sakura dropped by, briefly, with flowers in hand and Sasuke in tow. As though Haku had not convinced her that her teammate and friend was lying dead in front of her not two weeks prior. As if Haku hadn’t begged Naruto to kill him, as if Naruto hadn’t agreed to do it, in front of almost everyone present.

“Haku,” she said with a sweet, bright smile. “I’m so glad you’re well. Forgive me for not greeting you at the hospital, I—I didn’t recognize you.”

Haku politely requested that she not apologize for that, because she had only ever seen his face when it was bloodstained and lifeless, after all. He accepted the flowers gratefully, relishing the sweet scent and the bright color. The bouquet was the only color in the little apartment besides Naruto.

Haku, without his preferred garb, was a drab little spot of white in the gray of the apartment. He held the flowers close, imagining for a moment that he could absorb the colors.

Sasuke, however, merely glared, but that was a little bit preferable. At least it was understandable. He had reduced the boy to a pile of flesh and blood, after all.

What didn’t make sense, even though he had had time to become used to it, was Naruto and Sakura’s kindness, and Haku’s own complete faith in it. He did not doubt the honesty of Sakura’s smile, nor her flowers, and he never once, not for a moment, assumed anything but truth in Naruto’s friendship. 

But he did not see much of Naruto at first. Haku was given a short tour, treated to a pleasant lunch with the team, hugged firmly, told not to go anywhere because he was being watched, and then Naruto and the other two left to go train.

Haku was alone in the apartment, with nothing but a television he did not know how nor care to operate, a pile of old schoolbooks, and gathering dust. He took a shower, dressed in a plain, white yukata, read, and dusted whatever he could reach with the finally discarded hospital gown.

He read the books Naruto had in the room on the first day, and then he found more in a little storage room by the kitchen. On the second day he went through the scrolls, the papers, the pieces of information Naruto had accumulated over his years in the village and memorized the comings and goings of the shinobi tasked with guarding the little apartment at every hour, at every angle. It was a thorough guard, and there was never the slightest opportunity to leave.

But he told Naruto he wouldn’t, so he didn’t really search for an opening. It was something of a habit, more than anything else. His mind looked for the exits, for the ways out, but his heart knew he would stay here, for as long as he was needed, until something came to either kill him, release him, or bind him to purpose again.

The apartment was empty, quiet, and the eyes never stopped watching him. At night he woke, and during the day he dreamed. 

Naruto came back late in the evening on that first day, covered in dirt and bruises, and he did not even eat before crashing into the floor and sleeping till the sun rose. Then, when the sun rose, he left and did it all again. He bid Haku good morning and good night, but something heavy seemed to be weighing on the boy’s mind. Haku didn’t feel like he could ask about it, or even rebuke him for it. He felt, more than anything else, like a guest. He was a guest. A guarded guest, under what looked to be heavy surveillance.

On the second night, Haku crept forward to observe the cuts on Naruto’s hands. They really had healed. He cleaned Naruto’s wounds while Naruto dozed like a stone in a river, but in the morning each wound was nearly completely healed, just as Naruto had said they would be the first time.

On that third morning, something went very differently. Naruto beamed at him before he left, and Umino arrived at the same time, bearing many bags of food and groceries. Haku greeted Umino politely but remained seated at the window in the main room, knowing that Naruto would want to greet his beloved Iruka before leaving.

Naruto did not do that; he simply ran past Umino and made for the door. Umino, with the look of a man who might be able to bring down a building with a single glance, seized the boy by the collar of his jacket and dragged him back into the house.

“Naruto.” Umino’s tone was deadly, but he said nothing more than that. Haku, fascinated, left his place by the window to see what would happen and to see more closely, perhaps for his own edification, what sin Naruto had committed to warrant that tone. He came to where they stood before the front door and watched as Naruto writhed with what looked to be guilt.

“Is this how we agreed you’d behave?”

There was a mumble from Naruto, a stern glare from Umino, and then Naruto sighed. “No.”

Umino looked up and met Haku’s curious glance.

“Haku,” Umino said, tone unchanged, “what do you think of Naruto’s current state?”

Haku, with some confusion, looked to Naruto. Naruto looked like he usually did as a result of his training sessions, namely impatient and muddy, so he looked back to Umino and asked what he meant.

Umino looked between them, then he sighed and hauled the bags up and dropped them onto the kitchen counter. He stood there for a while and muttered to himself before he finally spoke properly.

“Naruto, the agreement we had was simple. You keep this apartment tidy, you take care of yourself, and I leave off all the—you know,” Umino said. Naruto nodded.

“You leave off being bossy,” Naruto finished. He looked to Haku and explained, without explaining anything at all: “He gets really bossy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Umino sighed. “I leave off being bossy. But bossy Iruka is back now, boys. Naruto, your hair is going to be matted in about an hour.”

Naruto reached a hand up to check. Haku leaned over a little too, tall enough compared to little Naruto that he could indeed see some excess filth on Naruto’s left side, and it extended into his hair. “Oh,” Naruto said, succinctly. Haku frowned and fought back a shudder when he realized that Naruto had come to the futon that they shared last night… like _that._

Haku looked at Umino, who looked at the ceiling, and then Haku looked at Naruto, who seemed to realize what was wrong.

“Sorry, Haku,” he said, blushing bright. “I’ll just… go take a shower. I can be late to training today. That dumb pervert is always a pain in the neck anyway.”

“The dumb—Ok.” Umino rubbed his fingers into his forehead. “You know what? Yeah. Go take a shower. I’m going to make breakfast, and we’re going to eat, and then I’m going to go with you to wherever you’re going.”

“What?! No!” Naruto cried. “You can’t! I can’t let you come to _training_.”

“Why not?”

“Sasuke gets to train alone.”

“Sasuke is training with Kakashi, and that’s safe. Relatively.” Umino’s voice took on a kind of different sound, and Haku realized that he was speaking in another accent. “I wanna keep my kid safe, and if my kid is going around training with someone I don’t even know—I wanna have a word with whoever the hell--.”

“Like you had a word with Kakashi?” Naruto demanded, levelling an accusing finger to his teacher’s face.

“Yes. But worse.”

“No! You were wrong about Kakashi, and you’re wrong about this! You proved yourself wrong last time and you’re doing it again now. You _said_ you wouldn’t be bossy!”

“Go shower!”

“Fine! But this conversation isn’t over!”

Naruto stomped off in the direction of the little bathroom, and within a moment the water was audibly running and there were crashing noises as Naruto, a hurricane, upended the already cluttered, decrepit little space.

“Haku,” Umino said, drawing Haku’s attention back to the kitchen. “Did you really not notice anything strange?”

“I was asleep when he returned last night,” Haku said quietly, a little ashamed. “But he was like that in the forest too.” Umino looked like he didn’t understand, so Haku politely elaborated. “He was always training, early in the mornings and late at night; I saw it often. I did the same, when I first began. I trained without sleep for a week, once, to prove to—” Haku fell silent, unable to mention Zabuza so lightly. “Because I knew I had to, for someone.”

“That’s terrible.”

Haku shrugged. “When I first met Naruto, he was unconscious because he was training so intensely. I admired it, and I still do.”

“Well, I won’t allow him to drive his body into the dirt.” Umino opened the fridge and began sorting through the items within, making room for the new groceries. “He needs to take care of himself. Nothing is worth the cost of losing his health.”

“His path is not one that will be made easier by any coddling now.”

“You see the unseen?” Umino muttered dryly, clearly sarcastic. “Fantastic. Why didn’t you see that this milk was expired?”

“I’m a shinobi, the same as you. There’s nothing easy about this life. He needs to train better, perhaps, but getting stronger is the most important thing to Naruto right now. I don’t see the point of impeding that goal over a bit of dirt.”

Umino upended the carton of milk into the sink and did not answer for a long time. “I have failed that boy enough times that I can’t live with myself if I fail him anymore,” he said after a long silence. “He’ll get plenty of horror and hardship from the rest of the world, and he’ll be stronger for it. He’ll take it, like he always has. But for as long as I am here, he will be showering, eating breakfast, and whoever wants to run him ragged will have to go through me.”

The water in the bathroom shut off, and there was more clattering as Naruto clearly rushed to dress himself. Haku did not look away from the tired line of Umino Iruka’s shoulders.

“They’ll be here to talk to you eventually; they’re only giving you space because Naruto’s managed to charm Ibiki, and because the Hokage is fond of me enough to trust me. Naruto’s done his best for you, but if you want to be a part of his life, the way he wants you to be, you had better pick a side.”

Haku readily met Umino Iruka’s eyes as the man turned around, but he could not help but feel surprise at the cold man that had taken the place of the mild, albeit stern, teacher from before. “I don’t see any sides; I see only an opportunity to help Naruto reach his goals,” Haku returned, calm in the face of this new, unexpected face of Umino’s.

“You will,” Iruka said, his tone darkly ominous. “If you want to come with us, you had better get dressed.”

Haku declined the invitation, and spent that third day, like he had spent the past two days, inside.

On Haku’s fourth morning in the apartment, Naruto dragged himself out of the blankets piled atop the single futon and ran to get the water boiling despite the obvious drowsiness in his movements. Haku pretended to be asleep until Naruto came back with what smelled like tea in hand. He placed it beside the futon and stroked Haku’s hair back, away from his face, so that the early morning sunlight reached his eyes.

Haku’s heart hurt in a strange way at the tender, gentle gesture.

“Haku,” Naruto whispered into the scattered birdsong of the morning. “I have to go train again, but this is for you. Please wake up and drink it before it gets cold. Iruka hates it when his tea gets cold. I won’t be out late this time, I promise.”

Haku opened his eyes, saw Naruto’s earnest, serious face, and nodded, equally seriously. “All right,” he said. “Go; train hard. But be smart. You’re smart, so you must train with your brain, all right?”

Naruto beamed. “’Kay!” he laughed, and then he was gone. Haku sat up and met the sunrise as it poured into the horrible little room and lit it on fire in orange and red and pink. The feeling of grief came to him so clearly that he had to put his head in his hands to contain the deep, endless sigh that would surely rip everything from his chest and kill him.

Haku stood finally and went to the window, tea in hand, to watch the sun rise with his own eyes, and he sipped the tea Naruto made for him. The sun turned the shingles outside Naruto’s window gold, and it made the strange, sprawling rooftops of the village seem less cloistered and crowded.

It was awful tea. He took another sip, and when he finished it, the presence that usually lingered above the window disappeared, a rotation of the guards.

Haku sighed, finished his tea completely, and went to the kitchen to prepare for another day inside, reading.

It began as a presence at the window, the usual one, so he ignored it, but then the presence was inside the room and at the kitchen table beside him.

“Keeping busy?”

Haku looked up from a book of fairytales, irritated that the day he decided to give in and read a storybook had been the day “they” decided to come. He was even more irritated when he saw who stood there. He flicked a strand of hair from his shoulder and glared.

“You.”

“Yeah, me. I think I owe you an apology, but honestly, I think we both know I’m the innocent party here.”

Haku did not let up his glaring.

“Fine, fine. I’m sorry. There. Now take a look at these; I’ll be back to bring you to the Hokage later, so look over them all carefully.”

“Haku?”

Haku looked up from where he was going over the scrolls, storybook put aside for the moment. “Naruto.” He smiled. “I…”

What he wanted to say fell away as he looked clearly at Naruto in the light of day. He looked better. Cleaner, happier, and less like he was made out of bone. More ashamed than ever, and glad Umino wasn’t there to see it, Haku had to look away from the boy in the doorway. “Naruto,” he tried again, swallowing when the words didn’t come easily.

“What’s all that?” Naruto came forward like nothing was wrong and peered over Haku’s shoulder with interest. “Is that—Are you being sent on a mission?” Naruto looked closely at a map. “That’s Wave country… Why are they sending you back?”

Haku noted, without needing to parse through it at all, that Naruto’s tone was anxious and worried. “Yes,” he said simply. It wasn’t a complex mission; it was a simple retrieval, but it was a test run of sorts.

“You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to go back there. You could just stay here.”

“I could, but I do not want to. I wish to be useful to you, and this is how I can be.”

Naruto did not say anything to that, but Haku felt a heavy weight in the silence. He followed Naruto’s gaze to the contract that he had already signed, and he covered it up hastily with the storybook when he realized Naruto was reading it. “Naruto? What’s wrong?”

Naruto bit his lip. “What… What do you mean by ‘useful’?”

Haku turned away from the papers, facing Naruto fully, confused and concerned by what he saw in Naruto’s face. “I—Naruto, I cannot just stay here without helping you, without being of some use to you. This is something I need to do in order to help you in the future.”

“Why are you saying it like that? Why are you saying it like…? Like you _have_ to.” Naruto’s voice trailed off, as if the thought was too awful to bear. Haku searched Naruto’s face, trying to understand where the emotion he saw was coming from, but he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t read Naruto at all.

“Naruto, you saved me when I should have died. When I _wanted_ to die,” Haku said slowly. “I owe you… everything. The only reason I am alive is because of you.”

“No, no, I didn’t do anything. I didn’t do _anything_. I just yelled. I would have killed you too.” Naruto starts to cry, but he keeps going. “Do you even know what happened? Did you read the note?”

“Yes, I did,” Haku said. “It doesn’t change anything. There’s nothing else for me here, or anywhere else. Why else did you let me live, if not for this?”

“Letting you die was wrong!” Naruto’s voice cracked.

Haku shook his head, confused by Naruto’s escalating desperation. “I don’t understand. You said you’d kill me, remember?”

“I was wrong! I shouldn’t have agreed to that. And I do want you to stay, but as my friend. Not as—Not as my… Not because I want you to do things like _this_ , or things for me, in the future. Or whatever it is you’re saying.” Naruto ran his hands through his hair and gripped the roots tightly, like he wanted to tear out entire clumps. Haku reached up to take Naruto’s hands away from his scalp, but Naruto only slapped his hands away.

He blinked at the impact. “Then… why am I here?” Haku asked.

“I just wanted you to live happily, not as a tool to Zabuza, and not as a tool to anyone. Especially not as a tool to _me._ I wanted— Can’t you see that it was wrong for you to die like that? Even _Zabuza_ saw that, in the end, and he was a complete monster.”

“Naruto,” Haku began, only barely keeping himself together, “Zabuza was not a monster. I was happy when I was useful to him. He was precious to me; I would have died for him a thousand times, no matter what. Do you understand?”

“It was wrong,” Naruto said, stubborn and tearful. “He didn’t even care about you.”

“He didn’t have to. I didn’t need that; but he did, in the end. You wrote in your note—”

“He only cared,” Naruto spat, “after I yelled at him, after I _made_ him care. They were beating you up, after you… after you fell. That man on the bridge, he was—He was---” Naruto choked on a sob. “It was horrible, and Zabuza didn’t even care. You threw away everything for him; you threw your life away, all your dreams, your entire future, and he didn’t even care until I told him to _._ ”

Haku swallowed. “I would have done it anyway,” he said, tightly. “I don’t care if he didn’t love me, or if he wouldn’t have ever. I didn’t have any expectations. He gave me purpose, and I dedicated myself to him for that, not for anything else.”

“That’s not love.”

“What do you know of love?”

“More than you!”

“How? Because of that teacher? He failed you too, didn’t he? He said as much to me.”

Naruto looked like he had been slapped. “Iruka’s good. He cares about me. He protects me,” he said, his voice wavering slightly.

“Then why does he act like he’s absolving himself? What’s he done that needs your forgiveness, Naruto? Tell me, what is the difference between Zabuza and Umino Iruka?”

Naruto said nothing, staring him with those awful, wide eyes. Haku regretted saying it, he barely recognized himself, and he hated himself for saying it immediately, but he couldn’t take it back, and he couldn’t bring himself to apologize. He stood, biting his lips nearly enough to draw blood. “I am going to go for a walk, but this conversation is over. I will do this. You cannot tell me not to.”

Haku left the apartment, he turned his back on Naruto’s shaking frame and stepped outside for the first time in four days. He got as far as the stairs before a man with a mask appeared before him in a cloud of familiar smoke. “Stand down,” Haku snorted. “I’m going for a walk. You can come with me, but don’t you dare make conversation.” 

“I’m not your guard,” the man said, a hint of humor in his bland tone. “And I have no desire to go on a walk with you.” It was too dark to see clearly, but Haku recognized the voice. “I’m here to see if you’re ready.”

Haku recovered quickly. This was for the best. This way, Naruto could not possibly try and stop him. “I am ready,” he said. “In a sense. But I have no weaponry, and no tools.”

The man laughed. “We’ll be taking care of that. Senbon, right?”

Haku spared him a glance, noting the droll, lazy cruelty in the joke.

“Yes. I assume you will be the one I report to?”

“Maybe, but not if I can help it. I hate paperwork. The details of the mission will be provided when we reach the Hokage’s office.”

Haku did not have much to say about the Hokage at first. He appeared, like someone else he met recently, to be mild-mannered, easy-going, and teacherly. Haku did not trust those impressions at all, but at least he knew where Umino Iruka might have learned his little act.

“I hear you and Naruto have hit a rough patch.”

Haku frowned, not appreciating that not only was he being spied on, but that the news of his life traveled faster than he did. “He will see reason.”

“Or you will see reason. Naruto is well known around these parts for turning the tables on unsuspecting Go-players.”

Haku did not respond, but waited for the old man to continue, which he did not. Instead, the Hokage slid an envelope forward across the desk. Haku took it, turning it over to inspect both sides. It was plain and unmarked.

“Are these the details of the mission?”

“Yes,” the Hokage said. “Though I am required to tell you that you may decline it.”

Haku opened the envelope quickly and scanned the contents. What he read made him realize that he should ask: “What happens if I do decline?”

“Nothing, but another mission will be assigned to you and we will make note of the rejection in your psychological profile.”

“The stakes are high, then.”

The Hokage cleared his throat. “They always are, in cases like these. That sword is of particular interest to a great many parties, to some who admired its previous owner, and some who despised him. Of course, the village should not be tied to the retrieval at all, not in any way. Iruka decided it would be best that _you_ retrieve it.”

“Umino Iruka has that much sway over these decisions?”

“When he decides to exercise it, yes, he does. He’s a particular friend of mine, and a dear person to Naruto. Naruto, you will soon learn, is a very influential creature.”

“I have noticed,” Haku said. “When do I leave, sir?”

“You accept the mission?”

“Yes,” Haku said, squaring his shoulders. “I will need a moment to get ready.”

“Whatever you might need, simply request it of the armory guards. And Haku?”

Haku looked up sharply, surprised to be addressed by name. “Yes?”

“Take your time.”

Haku walked in silence alongside his escort until he could bear it no longer.

“Did you kill him?”

Hatake Kakashi turned to look at him, his face eerily blank in a familiar way. “Who? I’ve killed a great many.”

“Zabuza. Was it you?”

“What would you do if it was?”

“I am not certain. I do not know if I could do anything. I cannot die, not anymore, but I think I would have been fine with dying trying to avenge him, once. But not anymore.”

“Naruto does that to people,” the masked man said. “Just makes them absolutely mad, makes them drop things they thought they knew. But no, it was not me. He died avenging you, in a sense, and making sure we knew you were alive. He really, really wanted you to live.”

Haku tied his hair up for the first time in what felt like a very, very long time, selecting a golden tie with a little blue flower at the end. After a moment, he was completely ready.

“I’m ready.”

“Yeah, I could tell. Have you ever considered just… chopping it all off?”

Haku checked the holsters up his sleeves and readjusted the vest over them. He missed his own haori; the vest was hideous and uncomfortable. “Have you ever considered just… not blocking the only two airways you have?”

“Fine, fine,” Hatake muttered. “Your attitude is pretty bad.”

Haku felt his lips pull into a smile.

It was beautiful, being outside. The wind in his hair felt like a hand, and the smell of the rain on the trees and in the earth filled his mind.

The trees were larger here than they had been in Wave country. And they twisted in so many interesting ways; Haku resolved to spend more time outside when he could, when he returned. Maybe he and Naruto could—and he remembered Naruto’s wet, distraught face as he stood to leave that last night and promptly tried to forget it. He’d apologize when he got back. When this was done, he’d go back and apologize for what he said, and for how he said it.

And if Naruto still wanted— If Naruto still wanted to see him, then Haku would dedicate everything to his dream. Even if he couldn’t say it, he’d do it.

With that new determination, and the Hokage’s words put aside, Haku traveled on, moving faster alone than he would have with a team or with a partner, and soon enough he found the place that Hatake had marked on the map.

Haku realized why the Hokage had told him to take his time.

Zabuza’s blade was there, thrust into the earth like it had grown there, clearly marking the presence of a grave. Haku could only stare as he approached, dropping from his place in the tree-branches to the earth below.

There it was, exactly as he remembered. Exactly as he had seen it, to his memory, what felt like only a week ago. It was only then, in front of the blade and the grave, that Haku realized what Umino Iruka had done for him.

He fell to his knees, and the tears came immediately. Weeping, he could barely bring himself to stand. It felt like hours before the tears ran dry and his breath steadied. It was real, and it was true. Zabuza was gone. He’d known, of course, but it hadn’t been this real before. Somewhere, under the earth, Zabuza was disintegrating, and Haku was stuck up here, whole and alive, and empty.

Even though he wanted to go back to Naruto and be by his side, even though he still kept that note Umino had given him, the one where Naruto said Zabuza wanted him to live, he also wanted to be dead, beside Zabuza.

His hands shook when he grasped the sword’s hilt, and his arms ached by the time he pulled it out of the earth, but when he pulled it out it simply dragged in front of him, too heavy to be held aloft like it was probably used to.

“I’m sorry,” Haku wept. “I shouldn’t even be here. I have to take you away from your master so that no one else does, and it had to be me to do it, because otherwise I never would have come back here, and I never would have said goodbye. But I’m not even strong enough to do this properly. So please, just let me drag you back to the Leaves.”

The tears leaked out still, but with time he could see clearly enough to wrap the sword entirely and cushion the blade with a sturdy cloth. He tied it to his back and began the long journey back, supposing he would be alone for most of it. But after a day of travel a shadow began to make itself apparent in the trees. It lingered on the edges of perception, like someone clearing their throat, or knocking before entering a room. The message was clear.

He turned towards it the second time it shifted in and out of his awareness, acknowledging it and waiting for something in return. He had his senbon ready, always, and a trap prepared, rigged into the sword’s wrappings. But he had a feeling he knew who it was up there.

“Haku,” came the voice, nearer than the presence had appeared to be, and he recognized it. “I wanted to give you time alone, but I hope you don’t mind if I help you move the sword across country. It can’t be sealed, unfortunately.”

“Mr. Umino,” Haku murmured, sliding the senbon back into their holsters. “Thank you. I will not forget what you’ve done for me.”

“You don’t forget anything about anyone, do you?”

Haku watched him for a moment, but it became clear that there was no bitterness nor malice in the statement. “Naruto told you,” he said, simply.

Umino nodded. “In great, probably exaggerated detail.” Haku did not respond, but Umino seemed not to expect a response. He took the sword from its place by the fire Haku had put together the night before and moved it to his own back. “You weren’t wrong about me, to be fair. Though you shouldn’t— not for my sake— insult me in his hearing. He goes a bit… He gets very intense, but I think you might have seen that for yourself.”

“Is there something I should know about that boy? There’s something… inside him, isn’t there?”

“Oh,” Umino muttered, “is there ever. Come on, let’s try and cover as much ground as possible. His final is this week, he wouldn’t want us to miss it.”

Haku crushed the fire with his foot and followed Umino as he took to the trees, but he did not let the question drop to the side the way Umino clearly wanted him to. “Is there anything I should be aware of? Is there any chance that he might— That danger might befall him?” He thought back to the boy in the hospital, the one who looked like he had been crushed.

“Yes,” Umino said thoughtfully, “the participants this year are terrifying. There’s even been an infiltration by a group of ninja from the Sound— well, Kakashi probably has that handled. Probably.”

They traveled in silence, the familiar trees of the Wave country slowly dwindling away, replaced with others. 

“Actually, before we get back to the village and meet Naruto in the middle of what is probably going to be a monumental emotional outburst, I should be explicitly clear with you about something.”

Haku looked at him, waiting, but Umino only stared straight ahead as they moved. For a long time, there was silence, and then he began to speak. “I told you before that I failed him. He will never know how much I did, or to what extend I did. It’s the reason he has all that power, because for years I hated him for it, and I ignored him when he was in need. I wised up, but it wasn’t enough. He’s faced nothing but ostracization and hatred, all his life, and for a long time I didn’t do enough to help him.”

“I told you that you had to pick a side,” Umino continued. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but you didn’t even conceive of the other side. For a long time, I was one of those people on the other side. But I love him, and it was easy to love him. As soon as I woke up to how much of an idiot I was, I loved him.”

Haku didn’t say anything, but he was beginning to weave together the pieces of Naruto’s story together. Finally, like the words were being pulled out from inside him against his will, he spoke. “Naruto is a good child, with a good heart. I don’t think anything could change that. And he loves you.” Haku’s breath caught in his throat, remembering the way he turned away from Naruto and left. “It’s not about what you deserve, or don’t.”

Umino watched him, he could feel it, but Haku kept his gaze firmly ahead. “No, I suppose not,” Umino said.

Haku did not waver again, but his heart beat faster when he noticed the trees changing shape. They were becoming greener with moss, and more winding, the branches thicker and heavier. They were nearing Leaf country.

Umino dropped him off at the apartment with a meaningful smile and a warm hand on Haku’s head, as if he was a child.

“It won’t be hard to fix things,” Umino said quietly. “He’s good-natured, and he doesn’t hold grudges.”

So Haku took a deep breath and opened the door with the key Naruto had given him on his first day. He thought, briefly, that he might have to wake Naruto up, but immediately decided that if Naruto was asleep, he’d just make breakfast instead.

But something attacked him immediately, with a force that nearly pushed him off the railing and into the stairwell below. Of course, at about the time he nearly broke his neck, he realized it was Naruto, and then by the time they were both safely on the platform again, Haku realized that Naruto was crying.

Sighing, Haku maneuvered them both back inside, not even bothering to detach Naruto’s iron arms from his middle. He was such a skinny child, so small, and yet so unnaturally strong. He let a hand stroke Naruto’s hair as he tried to get them out of the doorway and far enough into the apartment that he could close the door behind them. As the hiccups and sobs let up incrementally, Haku could eventually decipher what it was Naruto was actually trying to say.

“Naruto? I have to apologize too,” he said, interrupting a stream of tearful apologies. “I went too far, and I should not have left you like that.”

“Me too,” Naruto bawled. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to degrade the memory of someone precious to you.”

“Those are definitely not your words, Naruto.”

Naruto sniffled. “No, they’re Sakura’s.”

“She’s a smart girl.” Haku smiled.

“The smartest. She’s my best friend in the whole world.”

“I thought that was Sasuke?”

“No, ew, why would you think that? I hate Sasuke. Well. No, I don’t. But we’re not friends, really. Not yet, anyway. Soon, probably.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that you will be. Thank you for apologizing to me, Naruto,” Haku stroked Naruto’s hair back off his forehead. “Could you let me go so I can apologize too?”

Naruto released him, a little hesitantly, but lingered close by. Haku kept his hand where it was, in Naruto’s hair, unwilling to let him move away just yet. “I have to apologize for frightening you. I didn’t mean to make you feel that… To make you think that—”

“I know you wanted to die. I was there. I did agree to kill you.”

“Yes,” Haku said hesitantly, “you did. But I shouldn’t have—I probably shouldn’t have asked that of you. I was wrong.”

“I just want you to want to be with me,” Naruto said, mumbling. 

“I do want to be.”

“I want to be more than, like, your boss or whatever.”

“You’d be a terrible boss.”

“Haku,” came the reproachful reply. “I’m serious. I wanted us to be friends.”

“I have never had a friend.”

Naruto looked away. “I didn’t either until pretty recently. I only have a little more experience than you do, but I could teach you.”

And Haku had noticed, during that time before, that even Naruto’s teammates kept him at a distance, letting him in rarely and often with barbed fences in place. He pulled Naruto in for the same gesture Naruto had shared with him several times now. A hug. They stood there for a time, without speaking.

“I really am sorry,” Naruto muttered, his voice muffled. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it and worrying. Never do that again.”

“Do what?”

“Leave in the middle of a fight. I thought maybe if you died, I wouldn’t have been able to say sorry, or say goodbye.”

“We are shinobi; death is—” Haku met Naruto’s glare and stopped. “All right,” he finished instead. Naruto nodded firmly and buried his face back into Haku’s chest. “All right,” Haku said again, and patted Naruto’s hair in apology. “I apologize, Naruto.”

They got ready for bed, preparing the single futon in a ritual that felt, though they had only done it about five times before, like they had done it a hundred times. Naruto, still bony and still restless, settled in quickly and fell asleep almost immediately. Haku took longer to find rest.

The phantom of Zabuza was not there that night, but the dream still brought Zabuza forth into the little room. Snow was falling, birds were singing, and Zabuza was crying. Haku awoke to wetness on his own cheeks, tears that soaked the pillow beneath his head, and Naruto’s soft, sleepy rumbles.

He stared up at the ceiling until the sun’s light grew stronger, and eventually he stood. Breakfast, that morning, was Haku’s work.

“Your match is this week, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Naruto mumbled, face down on the kitchen table with his plate empty and pushed aside. “I’m going up against Hyuuga Neji.”

“Oh.” Haku did not recognize the name, nor the clan. He did not like that blindness. “Tell me about him.”

And Naruto launched into a tirade against a very rude, very cruel, altogether evil child who deserved to be flattened in front of thousands. Haku, to his credit, did not mention once his theory that Naruto would be friends with the boy within the week.

He kept it to himself, and when Naruto finished his rant, alongside his plate of eggs and toast, Haku began on the dishes. Naruto stepped in beside him, and soon the dishes were all clean, set to dry, and the kitchen was tidy in a way it hadn’t been in a few days.

“That was not so bad, was it?”

“It’s usually worse,” Naruto said. “It takes forever, and I don’t have the energy sometimes. This was a lot easier.”

“Wonderful. This way I can help you keep your end of Umino Iruka’s bargain.”

“Anything to avoid bossy Iruka, huh? He’s great, but he’s too much sometimes,” Naruto tsked. Haku couldn’t help his laughter. “Why are you laughing?” Naruto asked. “Oh,” Naruto stared at him with wide eyes. “Wow, Haku! You’re laughing! That hasn’t happened since I thought you were a girl!”

Haku had faith in Naruto, of course he did, but Umino was right; the students taking these exams were terrifying people. The greatest among his concerns were those shinobi from the Sands; they had apparently wreaked havoc in the preliminaries. The youngest of them had crushed the strange boy’s limbs, the one from the hospital. But that one would be fighting Sasuke, and so Naruto was hopefully safe from him for the time being.

Haku, perhaps because of his official release from unofficial house-arrest, had recently become quite the accumulator of gossip, speculation, and various threads of intelligence. He picked it up in the markets, and he found that the women and children of this village were just as friendly and ready to share in their web of unique, observant knowledge as the women and children of the Wave country. He heard about Gaara’s opponent, destroyed in every way in the preliminaries, and he hoped Sasuke was strong enough to defeat him at the same time that he felt relief that Naruto wouldn’t have to.

The information often came from the markets, and Haku gathered it easily. The shopping fell to him now, and he spent his mornings often in the village’s markets. He wove between the people of Konoha, busy with their errands and their little dramas, and he did not like everything he saw. The task was Haku’s alone because Naruto stopped coming with him after the first venture, his awkward excitement at the prospect of “a shopping trip, with _Haku_ ,” dashed by inexplicably hostile villagers. It also became clear, after the first ten minutes in the bustling market, why Umino seemed to be the one to do all the shopping.

Looking back, Umino had tried to warn him, but in the face of Naruto’s excitement, all warnings had gone to die.

Naruto eventually abandoned the effort, running away while Haku busied himself selecting bundles of spinach. Haku pretended not to notice that the man attending the stall had been glaring viciously at a boy of eleven years old, but after Naruto ran away, he couldn’t resist knocking the stall over as he disappeared back into the crowd. The cries of outrage pleased him.

He had also, he realized, technically stolen the spinach. He shrugged, putting it safely in his bag, and carried on shopping, noting that the glares eased now that Naruto was gone. He was invisible, and he found he did not mind it. But his mind was not easy.

The story behind Naruto, the energy on the bridge, and the glares of the villages began to come together. Haku began to conceive, clearly, of the image Umino Iruka had tried to paint for him. Haku sorted through a pyramid of peaches and realized that he slept, every night, by the side of the Demon Fox’s vessel.

Smiling, Haku thought that perhaps tonight he could make Naruto homemade ramen. He’d better learn how to make it to Naruto’s tastes, after all, in case the ramen place that the boy favored was run by animals too.

He did not know how he would knock over a ramen stall, if it came down to it.

And so, Haku, never the bloodthirsty sort, always desperate to preserve and maintain life, came back laden with vegetables, fruits, spices, and a distinctly burning desire to destroy the village hidden in the leaves. Naruto met him on the stairs after that first trip and simply smiled, a little sadly, and told Haku that Umino Iruka could carry on shopping for them, as usual.

Haku did not want to rely on Umino’s kindness, and he wanted to help Naruto, and so his newly awarded pension as a shinobi on retainer to the Hokage became dedicated to keeping Naruto fed and happy. There wasn’t anything else the money could have gone to, he tried to tell Naruto, but Naruto had other ideas.

The morning before the day of the finals, Naruto disappeared and didn’t return until the sun was high in the sky at midday. Haku, only slightly worried, wrote this off as a return to his training schedule, which had eased in intensity since Iruka’s intervention. He awaited Naruto’s return that day and made lunch as he did so.

Naruto returned with a pink kimono, a green haori, and a demand that Haku try them all on. The kimono was his favorite; it looked so similar to the one he had worn when he and Naruto had first met, Haku realized. It suited him perfectly. It was even outfitted with several hidden pockets.

“You realize that you used my own money to buy me presents?”

“I don’t have any money,” Naruto pouted. “And you weren’t gonna buy anything for yourself. So, you know, now you have something to wear to the finals! And I know you hate the vests.”

“Naruto, I will be arriving at the finals fully armed. I would be better served by the vests.”

“You can stick a few things in here.” Naruto pointed to one of the pockets that Haku had noticed while changing. “See? Plenty of room, even in the kimono. Besides, no one would attack you dressed like that. You’re not exactly threatening.”

“No, I suppose not.” Haku did not mention that he had every intention of being the one attacking, should there be any sign that Naruto was in danger in the arena. Perhaps Naruto did not need to hear that. It was an exam after all, controlled, and though shinobi were not well-known for safety, he had faith that Naruto would do well.

He had _no_ faith in the Sand shinobi, so he stood poised to battle duplicity, but he had faith in Naruto.

So, he indulged Naruto on the morning of the finals, and wore the gift Naruto bought him with Haku’s own money. Umino met them at the steps, and they walked together, joining the throng of people until they had to separate. Participant one way, observers the other. Naruto hugged them both quickly, made them swear not to look away for a second during his match, as though they could, and ran off.

Umino did not comment on the new clothes until Naruto was gone.

“Did you really need the bombs?” Umino asked. Haku hummed, serene, and gestured for Umino to go ahead of him towards the stands. “You should know better than anyone here that Naruto’s dangerous when he wants to be.”

Haku knew. But still. He let his finger rest on the poisoned senbon hidden beneath the flash bombs. One could never be too careful.

He was right on two counts. The first, of course, was that Naruto was incredible. He was learning, in leaps and bounds, and growing even stronger than he had been when they fought on the bridge. The second was that he was right to worry.

The entire stadium was put to sleep in a manner of seconds; and then the explosions began. Haku felt the shift in the air before the illusion descended on his skin and moved quickly to dispel them. Umino met his gaze with a fearful look for a moment, but the smoke billowing from the Hokage’s box quickly caught his attention. He looked, again, like someone different, but Haku knew better now. This was what made Umino good.

“I have to get to the kids. We’ll have to evacuate to the mountain.”

Haku did not ask about the rest of the people, for that was not his concern, and it was not Umino’s either.

Haku took a deep breath. “Very well,” he said. “I will find Naruto.”

“He’ll be in the contestant’s quarter; you can get in from the arena itself pretty easily.” Umino disappeared, but his voice lingered in the still air, even as the shouting began. “Keep him safe.”

Haku swore, silently, that he would. The stadium was large, but not so large that it could not be scaled and crossed relatively easily. He was under strict orders not to use his Bloodline Limit, but perhaps, under the circumstances, no one would mind if he set off a few dozen alarms.

It took a while to scale the stadium, without attracting attention, and by the time he found his way to the contestants’ quarters, he realized several things that he did not account for. The first being that Sasuke had run after his fleeing, injured opponent in the confusion of the attack, and the second that Naruto had absolutely gone after him.

Haku did not know what those three had to do with what was happening, but he knew they were dangerous. Gaara of the Sand was to be kept away from Naruto at any cost, and by extension, away from Sasuke.

Because where Sasuke went, the other two would follow.

He left the contestant’s box, looking around desperately, wishing he had paid enough attention to Sasuke and his opponent. Cursing, he eventually met the gaze of Hatake Kakashi, who dispatched an enemy with a knife to the jugular and gave Haku his full attention.

“So, you might have noticed, but I sent them after Sasuke.”

Haku glared at Hatake Kakashi, for perhaps the hundredth time, and wished he’d managed to kill him on the bridge.

“It’s not like I had another option. I am bound here, to protect the people of the Leaf.”

Haku scowled, unmoved. “I don’t have time for this. Where did they go?”

“There’s a possibility the Sand shinobi will flee the territory entirely, so go to the outskirts of the forests. Sasuke will be in pursuit, and Sakura will be right behind him, with Naruto. You can’t afford to waste any time here, so leave without being seen. You’re dressed... pretty conspicuously.”

Haku shot him a dirty look, unable to resist the bait, but he didn’t wait long after hearing what direction he needed to move in, his skin already tingling with the call of ice.

Hatake was right, he was dressed conspicuously. These enemy shinobi would notice him, easily, but—

But they didn’t know he was a shinobi. He wasn’t, technically. With a final look at Hatake, Haku brought his old disguise up over his head and into his skin, right beside the ice. Judging by the look of shock on Hatake’s face, it worked.

“Huh. No wonder you fooled Naruto. I should have given the kid more credit,” he said.

Haku shrugged, letting the act fall for a second, because the genius of this disguise was the truth of it.

With a cry of panic and disgust, Haku ran from Hatake with his hands over his head to signal that he was just a simple, scared, young person, even his gender unobtrusive, everything about him up to the wishes of the beholder. Quaking, he ran, as delicately as he knew how, and the jonin of the leaf saw what they wished.

It was not fair, not to the actually defenseless civilians, but Naruto was out there, and he was in more and more danger with every passing second.

So Haku ran from the stadium, readily protected by the jonin of the Leaf, who had no clue who he was, nor who they were protecting. From the stadium, the path to the forest was clear, and it required no trickery. He lost little time passing from the open clearings of the village’s limits and into the forests.

In the quiet of the forest, away from the shouts and clangs of the battles in the stadium, he paused, hidden safely in the boughs of an ancient tree. The ice was ready still, aching to be released, but he did not know what direction to go in. Tracking those in pursuit was nearly impossible without knowledge of the environment, and his knowledge of this forest was nonexistent. He could only wait for a sign, in agonizing silence, and follow that.

He knew there was a stream ahead, but he felt as though the Sand shinobi would not head towards such an obvious mark. He looked to the forest floor, searching for something, anything, that might give away their direction.

There was nothing ahead but the beginnings of a genjutsu, a slightly juvenile one, but effective enough to confuse him for a moment. Haku lingered at the limits but pushed ahead without dispelling it.

It could be one of the genin’s, and so he left it behind, passing over its edges and descending where he knew it tried to lead. He went in the opposite direction, sensing the crude plan in its design and deciding that it must be the work of the genin indeed.

Something with a heavy impact shook the trees, so he followed the sound to its source, hiding in the branches until the scene became clear to him below.

It was one of the Sand shinobi, the one in black, readying an attack on what looked to be one of the genin, though Haku did not recognize him. The ice came readily, and if it were not for the shock of his appearance, he was not sure he could have caught his opponent by surprise. But he did, and an icy mirror erupted from the earth behind the Sand shinobi. Haku leaned out of the ice and slid his senbon into exposed neck, it went in easily, exactly where it needed to go to render the Shinobi useless.

The kid slumped forward; his strange puppet’s blades buried into the ice behind Haku and giving off a strange smell. Poisoned, Haku noted. No time to dwell on that now, he struggled to keep the shinobi upright, unwilling to let him fall until he was certain the senbon had done their job. He searched for the pulse under the robes and found blood. Gritting his teeth, he felt further until he found it, slow and steady.

“I had that under control,” the stranded genin snarled, his glasses flashing in the light. “You’ve deprived me of my opponent.”

“Are you a child?” Haku asked. “Where did the others go?”

The genin’s expression was hard to read, but his displeasure was clear. He pointed. Haku let the body fall forward, deeply comatose now, and pointed at the Genin. “Will you guard this shinobi’s body, or will you do something childish, like stab it?”

“I’ll just take him off your hands,” a new voice said, and a blast of wind, unnatural in strength, knocked him over sideways and onto the ground. The third Sand shinobi, the girl, stood tall over her brother’s body, clearly prepared to fight to protect it. Haku braced himself, but when he spoke it was not to the newcomer.

“Go, back to the village, tell whoever you can that there are genin in the forest and that the forest has been infiltrated too.” The genin stood sullenly, unmoving. “Go,” Haku hissed. “Now, or I will dispose of you.” Haku lifted a hand and raised a few more senbon. This would be a waste of time, that much was certain, and he didn’t need to be distracted by a child on top of it.

A rustle of air and a burst of energy, somehow bitter in feeling, told him that the boy was gone now. He kept his eyes trained on the girl, who did not make a single move, noting that her eyes were frantic as she stood over her brother’s prone form.

“Listen, we don’t need to fight,” the girl said, but her stance told another story. Haku did not drop his guard, but he passed from mirror to mirror until he stood before her. “I just want to get my brother out of here safely. What do I need to do to get him out of this alive?” Her voice shook. “Is he alive?”

Haku saw something then, in her eyes. She wasn’t the same as he was, not remotely, but he recognized that look. It was something he’d felt, and something he’d seen too. She looked like Naruto, just then, desperate and angry, like he had been on the bridge. She looked resigned too, like Naruto had been right before he nodded and took the kunai, agreeing to kill Haku.

“Your brother is safe. I can remove the senbon easily, and he will be fine afterwards. Take me to Naruto and I will help you.”

The girl put her fan away and turned to her brother’s body, pulling back his hood and inspecting the wound in his neck. “You swear? You swear he’s all right?”

Haku leaned over and took her hand, moving it to the boy’s pulse. “It’s steady. I do not kill when I can avoid it.” The girl began to shake, so Haku let go of her hand and stood aside to give her a moment of privacy. “I wish to move quickly,” he said. “It’s in your best interest to move quickly too.”

The girl stood, wiping her eyes. “Wake him up. I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

Haku remembered the bloodthirsty boy in the arena, her youngest brother, the one who had crushed the boy’s limbs in the hospital. He plucked the senbon from her brother’s neck. The boy’s eyes opened suddenly, and he gasped for breath as Haku tossed the bloody needle to the side.

“We have to move,” Haku muttered. “Get him back on his feet and let’s go.”

The girl shushed her brother’s questions and helped him to his feet. “Gaara is dangerous,” she said. “He’s a deadly, relentless fighter and he kills without discrimination. Sasuke is in great danger.”

“He’s your brother,” Haku pointed out. The mirrors he had constructed fell away with a wave of his hand, but he kept one up, just in case, directly behind him.

“He’s my burden,” Temari murmured. “He’ll be in pieces now, it’s likely that we will not be able to reach him in time to prevent a transformation.”

“Transformation?”

“He’s a vessel. The beast inside him is probably going to overcome him soon; it’s never happened before, but it’s… it has come close, with injury.”

Haku realized that the reason the shinobi of the Sand had left the arena in the first place, the reason they fled, was because their weapon was broken. But the look on the girl’s face wasn’t the look of a girl who broke a weapon, not even a particularly crucial weapon. The invasion, the ambush at the stadium, had gone ahead regardless of these shinobi’s involvement.

“What happens if he transforms?”

“We lose him, this time forever,” her brother muttered. “Temari, we can’t trust this guy.”

“We don’t have a choice,” Temari whispered. The girl looked to her brother, then looked back to Haku, her expression guarded.

Haku shrugged. “I would rather go face your brother, rather than a monster. If you come, there is the chance that I will find your brother, and not a monster. I would prefer that.”

“I’ve never had any say in the matter,” Temari said. “He does not care about us. He’d kill us himself if he could get away with it.”

Yes, Haku would rather that Naruto stayed far, far away from their brother. But he knew Naruto, and he knew very well that where pain lived, Naruto followed, intent on easing it. So, he needed to bring these two with him and hope that somewhere, under the monster, their brother still lived.

A roar shook the forest, shocking birds from the trees and startling Haku out of his plans.

Temari paled. “It’s too late. He’s loose.” There was another roar, so strong it nearly knocked Haku down. There was force in the sound, like a well of energy was being unleashed into the world, carried on the waves of the roar.

“I will kill the monster,” Haku said, bracing himself against the next wave, “if your brother is gone.”

Temari looked to her brother, who tensed.

“We will go with you,” he said in a low voice. “But you will have to fight all three of us if you want to kill him.”

“So be it.”

They moved towards the roars, bracing themselves against the unnatural sounds, the enormous waves of energy, and the dread of what they’d find. Haku, near enough to the source of the energy that he could almost smell the particular scent of a demon, stopped only to inspect a structure of sand that Temari looked at forebodingly as they passed.

“There’s someone in there,” she said tensely. “Alive. You won’t be able to break the sand unless—”

Haku leaned against the sand, sensing the liquid of blood inside, and conjured his ice strong enough to burst through. When Sakura fell forward, coughing, Temari caught her.

“Where’s Naruto?”

“One track mind?” Sakura closed her eyes, gasping for breath. “He’s better off than Sasuke and I, that’s for sure.”

Haku brushed sand from her hair and her face, guiltily, and said: “You did very well. I’m glad you’re safe. I am going to go find Naruto now.”

“Sasuke too,” Sakura mumbled. “His curse mark is draining his strength away; it’s dangerous.”

Haku put that aside for the moment, unsure of what it meant but remembering Naruto mentioning something like it once. He looked to Temari and her brother, his only able allies. “I will do everything in my power to spare your brother if you find the boy named Sasuke and take him and this girl to the village.”

“We’d be putting ourselves in danger, we cannot return there.”

Sakura let out a shaky breath, seeming to brace herself to stand, and perhaps fight, again. “I can do it. I’ll take Sasuke back. I’ll need help convincing him, though. He probably won’t want to leave”

Temari looked to her brother. “He can help bind him if it comes down to it; you can carry him on your back. We can do that much for you. It might spare some lives.”

Sakura and Temari looked at each other for a moment, something passing between them. Finally, Sakura spoke.

“No. That would humiliate him and make everything worse. Forget that.”

She looked determined, and Haku trusted her. If she felt that her teammate wouldn’t be able to handle such treatment, then he believed that. “Very well,” he said, brushing blood from her cheek. “It will not come to that.” She smiled at him. But something seemed to grab hold of her thoughts, for she turned to the shinobi of the Sand with renewed tension.

“Your brother’s in there,” Sakura told them. “He could have killed me, but something stopped him. It was whatever was left of him, I’m sure of it.”

Temari’s brother blinked. “Gaara doesn’t _spare_ people. You were just trapped in his suffocation trap. He did not spare you; he found another way to kill you.”

Sakura shrugged. “You can believe what I saw, or you can look for another explanation, Kankuro. I won’t stop you. Now, we have to find Sasuke. He might be planning something stupid.”

Haku left them to it, but when he turned to leave, Temari followed.

“Kankuro will find us, as soon as he can. But you will need me with you if there’s even the slightest chance that my brother is still in there, somewhere.”

Haku had not feared much in his life, not since he killed his father and the men who killed his mother. He felt fear then, and though the years that followed were a blur, he did not fear anything when he was with Zabuza. For Zabuza was strong, and he trusted Haku to stand beside him. He felt fear once, in recent memory.

He was terrified when he saw Hatake Kakashi prepare to kill Zabuza. It was that fear, primal and mindless, that drove him forward into the screaming light. It pierced his chest long before Hatake’s thousand birds ever did. But he survived that, with new orders, and a new life. He hadn’t really known fear since. He’d been afraid, in a way, when he made Naruto cry, but it wasn’t this kind of fear.

He gathered Naruto’s body up, relieved that the blood was bright red, topical, and still bleeding freely. Temari, in turn, went to her brother. Tentatively, she walked forward, like a woman approaching death. But whatever she feared, it did not seem to happen.

“Temari,” Gaara said, and Haku could just barely hear him over the wind and… He did not care. He looked down to Naruto, who was smiling a little despite his wounds.

Temari’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Your boy won,” she said, in a tone of shock.

Haku smiled. “Of course.” He brushed the drying blood from Naruto’s face and located the slowly oozing wound on his forehead. It wasn’t deep, but there might be a risk of a concussion. Haku let his hand drop to Naruto’s cheek. “Take your brother away,” he said, and two shadows came to sit beside him. Sakura and Sasuke, both silent, watched Naruto with something like awe and trepidation.

“He’s all right,” Haku reassured them. “Let’s get you all back. They’ll need you in Konoha. Sasuke, are you well?”

Sasuke looked like he wanted to say something besides what he did end up saying, which was that he was fine. But just then, Naruto moaned a little, and there was another rush of movement.

Haku met Temari’s eyes as she and her brother lifted Gaara between them and nodded. Her jaw tensed, and he knew then that she had not had her happy reunion yet. They disappeared into the trees, and he prayed that she’d have her brother at the end of everything, and not another burden.

“It’s like all of our stories are everywhere,” he said quietly. Like mirrors, he thought, reflecting everything everywhere. Perhaps that was the proof that shinobi had hearts; that they saw themselves in each other, even when it felt impossible, even when they were alone.

“Sorry?” Sakura looked at him with concern, her hand outstretched as though to touch him.

“It’s nothing,” Haku said. “I was just thinking out loud. Help me bind this, and we’ll get moving.”

Konoha did need them, sooner rather than later. There were small, petty dramas, made worse by Naruto’s victory and Sasuke’s ailment. The curse mark, for a curse it was, had been growing steadily worse with each of Sasuke’s battles. The bindings on it were not enough to contain it from his own, willful use. And then there was the truly terrible news: the Hokage was dead.

The funeral was painful, and afterwards Haku could only stay awake beside Umino and Naruto as they grieved, late into the night. It was a difficult night, and the next morning was just as terrible. Naruto’s brightness was dimmed, and Umino’s mild cheer was gone. In place were two people with only each other, and Haku on the outside, steadily supplying them with tea and trying to make sure they ate when they could.

Naruto and Sasuke were also on tense terms, apparently, which drove Naruto further into the depths of the blackest mood Haku had ever seen from him. Nothing cheered him up, nothing brightened his face during those moods.

“The Sand has surrendered,” Haku told him one morning, putting his shopping down on the kitchen table and tapping Naruto’s shoulder. Naruto was face down on the kitchen table, which was not always a bad sign, but sometimes it could be. “Unconditionally; it is no small part because of your victory, Naruto.”

Naruto mumbled something incoherent, but which sounded a lot like _what’s the point._

“I heard about Jiraiya’s offer,” Haku said, after a moment. “I think you should go. It would be valuable to learn from a Sage, especially one they offered the position of Hokage.”

“I hate him,” Naruto said, lifting his head off the table long enough to deliver that forceful statement before dropping it back down. “I don’t want to do things.”

“If you do, you will only get stronger. I don’t like seeing you this way, Naruto. I want you to go.”

“What’s the point? I get stronger, and nothing changes. Now you want me to leave?”

Haku, feeling as though they were talking about things in riddles, offered a riddle himself. “Some things can be thrown aside, if they’re broken. But I don’t think things are broken, Naruto. You will see results, eventually.”

“Everyone still acts like I’m a… loser. But now they think I’m gonna go bad like Gaara did.”

“Well,” Haku said. “If you go sour, I will let you know. Is this expired?” He sniffed the milk. “Nope, it’s still good. Just like you, Naruto.”

It was a pathetic attempt at a joke, but it earned him a giggle and it lightened Haku’s heart. He did not realize how much he had come to depend on Naruto, but it was becoming clear that Naruto’s happiness was his own, too. If Naruto left, he’d feel better, his dark moods would disappear. Leaving this village would only improve Naruto’s mind’s health, of that Haku was certain. Beyond that, he did not know what else to do. There were little wounds, everywhere, and he did not know how to heal them. But perhaps, if Naruto was in safe, capable hands, then Haku could try and do something to fix things here.

“So, will you go?”

Naruto sighed. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “I would have gone anyway. I just don’t wanna leave you here alone. But that dumb Sage says you can’t come. He’s horrible.”

“I’ll be fine, Naruto. Go.” Haku’s heart warmed at Naruto’s concern, but it was not necessary. Naruto was needed there, finding the next Hokage, and Haku was needed here, fixing the things that caused Naruto pain.

He ought to pay Sasuke a visit.

“Sasuke?”

Haku pretended to be surprised to see him, but he had planned this in truth. He knew where Sasuke tended to train. He met him on the bridge that lead to that place, knowing it from Naruto’s stories and now certain he was at the right place.

“Haku.”

The field beyond the bridge was empty, so Haku pretended to look apologetic. “I am so sorry to intrude. I was wondering if you’d lend your strength to me for a time.”

Sasuke looked expectedly dubious about this. “Is it because Naruto is gone?”

“No, no. I haven’t fought Naruto. I haven’t had a spar since, well,” Haku laughed, “I haven’t sparred in a very long time. Would you be willing to be my partner?”

Sasuke shot him another look of doubt. “Uhm.”

“I need a good opponent, and you and Naruto gave me a great deal of trouble on the bridge. I thought it might be good for both of us to train together, perhaps so I can improve, and perhaps so you can learn to counter Bloodline Limits like mine.”

Sasuke’s hand went to his neck, where the curse mark remained. “Without this?”

Haku’s gaze sharpened. “Of course,” he said. “Your power alone should be enough. No need to borrow strength.”

Sasuke looked down at the water running beneath the bridge, his expression dark. “Fine,” he said. “Use the mirror castle again.”

“Naturally.”

They sparred, with varying degrees of progress, until the sun set. Then, the next day, to Haku’s surprise, Sasuke met him at the market. Blushing slightly, the boy mumbled something Haku could not hear.

“Come again?” he asked. Sasuke seemed close to exploding.

“Spar with me again!”

“Oh,” Haku looked down at his shopping. It was his favorite part of the day, and he really had nothing else to do with Naruto gone but walk among the farmers and the merchants and sample their wares and experiment with their goods. “I was shopping, though.”

“You’d rather buy food than spar?” Sasuke looked aghast at the idea, as though it was close to blasphemy. It was the most emotion Haku had seen from him.

“Not exactly, but I do enjoy it. Would you care to join me?”

Sasuke fell into step beside Haku, eyeing him suspiciously. “How did you get to be so close with Naruto?”

“He’s a delightful child.”

“Why do you talk like that?”

Haku looked over a stall and dismissed its quality out of hand, but after a moment he realized Sasuke had asked a question. “Like what?”

“Like you’re so much older than us. I thought you were, but you’re actually just fifteen, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I might be sixteen now, I think. That’s a little more than three years older than you, Sasuke.”

“It’s not much.”

Haku blinked. Oh, dear. “Sasuke—”

“Whatever. Finish your shopping and get dressed, I want to try again.” He turned and ran away, leaving Haku with a bag of fruits he had planned to share and a distinctly rising sense of doom. _Oh, please, no_ , he thought.

But he went, as ordered, to meet Sasuke at the clearing they had chosen the day before. It was still damp from his ice castles, and that gave him an unfair advantage that he tried to explain to Sasuke. Sasuke only shrugged.

“No enemy is going to be fair to me,” he said, readying himself. “Come at me now. Let’s go.”

That training session, for they were becoming training sessions, was much more successful. Sasuke managed to tear down his castle, at the very end, just as Haku was becoming exhausted. He looked very proud of himself, soaking wet and more bruised than whole.

“Are you satisfied?” Sasuke asked.

“You asked _me_ to spar.” Haku looked down on the wet earth, uncaring for how it might look, and lifted a bit of ice to sit on. He was exhausted. “Do you never tire?”

“No.” Sasuke said, blandly. “You didn’t change, though, so tomorrow we have to do it again.”

“What?”

Sasuke jerked his head at Haku’s pink kimono, unsoiled and well preserved. “You didn’t fight hard enough; you were worried about your stupid kimono.”

“It’s not stupid,” Haku said, a little hurt. “Naruto bought this for me. Sort of. I think it’s beautiful.”

Sasuke blushed. “It’s fine.”

Haku narrowed his eyes at him. He had to nip that right in the bud, but he had no idea how. “Naruto will be back soon. Would you like to try again with him?”

“Fight you again? Like on the bridge?” Sasuke frowned. “How did Naruto beat you?”

“He… He saw you, lying there, and thought you were dead. His fear and anger made him stronger than anything I’d seen from him before, and he overpowered me.” Haku left out the beast, deciding that Sasuke would take it badly, if the rest of the village was as horrible about it as they were.

“So, it was because of me that he won?”

Haku didn’t know how people worked very well, it had never been something he had to worry, or think about. He knew Zabuza, he knew himself, and he knew how to fool people with his appearance. But he thought he could detect something like jealousy and satisfaction together, intertwined, in Sasuke’s voice. “Yes,” he said. “When someone has something precious to protect, like Naruto, their strength always rises to meet them.”

“He beat Gaara,” Sasuke mumbled. “Alone, he beat him.”

“Not in the way you think,” Haku whispered. “Gaara was stronger than Naruto in terms of sheer force, but Gaara defeated himself, in the end, because he did not have what Naruto did.”

“What did Naruto have?”

“You. Sakura. He only fought the way he did to protect you two.”

Sasuke looked a little lost. “I don’t have anything like that.”

“I know,” Haku said. “I didn’t either, for a while. But you can always find love, I think.”

“Naruto?”

“He works his way into you and stays, I’ve noticed. He’s easy to love, too.”

The blush seemed to be taking a permanent residence on Sasuke’s face. “He’s all right. He’s fine. Why him?”

“I’ve never met someone like Naruto,” Haku said honestly. “I didn’t have a family for very long either. But I’ve never met someone who was so hurt, who had so much reason to be a monster, who chose not to be. I want to be like him.”

They walked back in silence, and although Haku did not know much about the village nor its history, he knew it was strange that Sasuke and Naruto went home to emptiness every day in a village so full of people.

“I was thinking of getting my own place,” Haku said, as they arrived at the village gates. His thoughts were lingering on the lonely apartments the two boys went home to.

For some reason, Sasuke looked worried and reluctant to respond. Then the expression changed, and Haku watched his awkward frown become a scowl. “You can’t just leave Naruto,” he said coldly, his previous warmth gone. “He really cares about you. I thought—”

Haku beamed. “Who said I’d leave Naruto?”

“Why are you smiling like that? Oh. Oh, no. I wasn’t worried about him—Don’t go thinking—!”

But it was too late. Haku left Sasuke at the gates and walked home with a light step, firmly convinced of Sasuke’s goodness.

The next morning, the news came that Hatake Kakashi was in a bad condition, having met a shinobi of unknown origins and engaged them in combat. Haku was at the hospital before Sakura or Sasuke arrived, and he was there when Sasuke learned that his brother, who killed their whole family, had targeted Naruto and sent Kakashi, who had appeared to be indestructible even to Haku, to the hospital.

Haku was split between irrational terror, and rational terror. The Sage was with Naruto; but what if the Sage was overtaken? What if he was not prepared to battle a shinobi who could dispatch _Hatake._

“I have to go find Naruto,” Sasuke said, after Sakura dragged both he and Haku out of the hall and towards the exit. “He’s in danger. My brother is remorseless, and Naruto _will_ die if he fights him.”

“The village will send people to warn the Sage,” Sakura said nervously.

Sasuke huffed with impatience. “Without the Hokage the response might be slow. Sakura, I have to go.”

“No, I will go,” Haku said, snapping out of his dark thoughts. “It’s my job to protect him. You stay here.”

Sasuke snorted. “If it’s your job, then it’s our job too. We can do this together,” he said. “We stand a better chance together, anyway.”

Haku, still shaking from the thought of Naruto in danger, forced himself to admit that he had a point. “I couldn’t beat an enemy like that alone,” he admitted. “I would be honored if you accompanied me to protect Naruto. But you must both swear to avoid putting yourselves in danger.”

Sakura pursed her lips. “We don’t have to face them; we only have to warn their targets.”

Sasuke hesitated only for a moment before nodding. He looked to Haku for confirmation, but Haku had thought of something else.

“Sasuke, are you all right with us potentially facing your brother? Are you ready to face that man?”

The look on Sasuke’s face could only be described as grim. It did not look like it belonged on a child’s face. “Yes,” he said. “We have to go now, though, before they realize we’re gone.”

“We’ll follow the trail the attackers left,” Sakura said. “I’ll go swipe Kakashi’s record from the nurse. We’ll see where the attack happened and go from there.”

Haku looked to Sasuke with a wry smile. “I guess I’ll go get changed,” he said weakly. Thankfully, Sasuke returned the joke with a tense, but honest, smile.

Sakura led, surprisingly, the best of all of them. Haku’s mind kept conjuring images of Naruto’s body on the forest floor, of Naruto’s body limp on the forest floor, and, most confusingly, of Naruto’s body impaled on Kakashi’s hands. Sasuke was not much better off, either, his mood had become something impossible to predict or navigate on the journey. It was understandable.

“We can’t take on two missing shinobi and win, there’s just no way,” Sakura mused as they approached the town’s inn. “We were a bit rash to do this, but we can at least be smarter from here. Especially if we want to be useful. Our best bet is to alert the Sage; he’s a Sannin, and he’s more than a match for a couple of missing shinobi.”

Sasuke did not appear to be listening, not closely at least. His mind was clearly elsewhere, and Haku could not blame him. His own blood was pounding in his head, and fear was making itself a nest in his head. At least this time the thousand birds would be on his side, protecting the ones he loved.

“We stop here for the night,” Sakura said with a firm look at them both. “How suspicious is it that three genin without a team leader are staying the night here?”

Haku snorted.

“Ok, Sasuke and I are genin, and you’re… an ex criminal.”

“I was no such thing!”

“Spare me,” Sakura rolled her eyes. “Now, I have enough to get us one room here for the night. So, we have to—” She froze when she entered the inn. Haku blinked at her still back, and stepped forward to peer over her head, still taller than both her and Sasuke.

“Oh,” Sasuke muttered. “Well, I guess we found them.”

Haku watched the Sage flirt, badly, with a waitress whose gaze was both distant and distracted. The outrage he felt was undeniable. “I am going to go find Naruto. This is unacceptable. That _toad_ is meant to be guarding Naruto, not… Not—Canoodling! Some _woman._ ” Haku stomped into the inn and waved off the attendant who tried to ask about his business.

“Uhm, Haku?” Sakura sounded tentative but determined.

“What?” he snapped.

“We don’t know what room Naruto’s is. We can’t just—” There was a crash from the floor above and then a screech of curses.

“Found him,” Haku said, and ran up the stairs to find a strange man with a blade to Naruto’s kicking legs.

His mind went blank in a familiar way, and by the time he could think in words and not lightning flashes of rage and blood, the mirrors were holding themselves upright, barely, as the man desperately hacked away at them.

“Take Naruto and _run_ ,” he gasped, barely keeping his ice up. “Sakura, please take him—” Haku struggled to keep the ice up, knowing it was certain death if it fell, hoping that Sasuke at least had snapped out of his horror.

But Sasuke had seen his brother, and after that everything fell apart.

The Akatsuki, for that was what they called themselves, fled eventually. Haku was left with what felt like a collection of broken ribs, and a psychologically unstable twelve-year-old in a faint. The Sage, though he had saved them all, was not going to make it out of this alive, if Haku had anything to say about it. But Haku could not have anything to say about, because his chest had been nearly caved in.

Altogether, it was a disaster. Naruto was crying, alternating between trying to shake Sasuke awake and trying to put more pillows behind Haku’s head, and Sakura, as she had been before, was an island of calm throughout all this. Her frozen horror was gone, and she was diligently working beside Jiraiya to bind Haku’s ribs until help arrived. Haku blacked out from the pain only briefly, but when he opened his eyes again Jiraiya was gone and only Sakura remained.

“We have to stay here until the jonin they sent come to pick us up,” she said. “But it’s dangerous for the Sage and Naruto to stay in one place at the moment. So, they must leave—It’s harder to hit a moving target. Get back down, Haku.”

Haku winced, falling back into the pillows despite himself. “Let me see him,” he whispered, fighting the pain.

Sakura looked upset at his request. “They just left. I’m sorry, Naruto didn’t want you to see him like that.”

Haku lay there, staring at the ceiling, struggling to breathe, until the man sent by Konoha arrived. He looked strangely familiar, with silky black hair, clad in a familiar green jump suit. But Haku couldn’t place it, his head swimming from the pain, until the man finished healing the worst of the injuries.

“So, you’re the Haku I’ve been told about,” the man boomed. He was pleasant, Haku decided, but rather much. “My Esteemed Rival has spoken highly of your abilities, but to think you could push it to such limits! Incredible, truly. Your technique, however, is probably not suited for combat against brute force.”

Haku groaned as the ribs slid back into place, finally sitting up when the man ceased his ministrations. “No,” he said weakly. “I suppose not. The mirrors do not shatter easily, but I underestimated the Fish Man’s strength.” The man hummed in a calming way, and when he stood, Haku recognized him. “You—I think I know… There was a boy, in the hospital—”

“Oh,” the man smiled, bright and wide. “You have met my pupil? Lee is in a difficult place, now. If you do not mind, I do not wish to speak of it.”

Pressing his lips together, Haku nodded. “My apologies, that was insensitive of me.”

“It’s all right,” the man said kindly. “All right, I will carry the boy. Please, however, do not hesitate to tell me if you have trouble walking. I will carry you both without issue. This, I swear. If I cannot, I shall do five hundred push-ups with you on my back.”

Haku blushed, horrified. “No, no, it’s quite all right.” He stood and was relieved that the pain was dull and fading fast. Thank goodness. “I am fine to walk. Please, do not worry.”

The man smiled, lifting Sasuke up and onto his back. “This one is very light, which is of some concern. Come, let us get Miss Haruno and be gone from this place.”

Haku took one last look at Sasuke’s face, and to all the world he appeared fast asleep. He nodded. “Very well.”

Sakura and Haku did not leave Sasuke’s side those last few days, deciding not incorrectly that his encounter with Uchiha Itachi would be some paradigm shift in Sasuke’s psyche. But it was not what they expected.

There was rage, of course, and self-blame, and hatred—Itachi had apparently thrown every weapon in his arsenal at Sasuke’s mind, and Sasuke, impressionable and absolutely unprepared, had internalized all of it. But what Haku assumed, what Haku had been convinced might happen, did not happen.

Haku was visiting his hospital room one morning with Sakura, who had become a constant companion after the disaster of their doomed (but not failed) “save Naruto” mission, when Sasuke asked an interesting question.

“What you said before, do you remember it?”

“What did I say?” Haku shuffled through his memory quickly. “Oh, about Lee? Would you like me to take him flowers on your behalf too?”

Sasuke blinked, and then blushed. “No,” he said firmly. “No, not that.”

“Then what?”

“Do you really think Naruto got so strong because he has someone he loves?”

“Well, what I actually said was that people become stronger when they have someone precious, or something precious, to protect. It’s not really literal, but if it helps, you can think of it as a good reason to get stronger.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, do you have anyone you want to protect?”

“No,” Sasuke said. “Not really.”

“That’s a lie,” Haku smiled. “I know you care about Sakura and Naruto. I’ve seen it.”

“But I don’t want to get stronger to protect anyone, I want to get stronger to destroy someone.”

“And then what?” The look on Sasuke’s face was blank, as if he could not conceive of what Haku was asking. “You kill that person, your brother, and then what?”

“I don’t know. I want to avenge my family, what comes after is not that important.”

“What comes after, and before, and between, is very important,” Haku said. “That is what will give you the power you need, and the peace you need when that power is no longer necessary.”

“So, what do I do? It feels so awful right now. The nightmares alone…” Sasuke's voice trailed off, as though the mere memory was unbearable.

“Focus on getting better,” Haku said, and took out his knife. He peeled the apples he brought until they were all gleaming, white like snow, and arranged in slices for Sasuke’s convenience. “Then, when you get better, focus on getting stronger. Learn, study, train; and prepare yourself for the rest of your life.”

“You probably didn’t do any of that,” Sasuke said suspiciously. “When we met you, you were just a weapon.”

“That’s wrong,” Haku said with a sharp look. He took a deep breath when Sasuke’s head snapped up, guilt on his face. “I know it is hard to believe, but Zabuza was not a monster. I was not treated warmly, perhaps, but I was kept warm, safe, fed, and I was allowed to do whatever I pleased as long as I stayed by his side.”

Sasuke looked doubtful but he did not interrupt. He took a slice of an apple from Haku when it was offered, and he listened.

“In truth, I did less for him than he ever did for me. Naruto might have seen him at his worst, but the truth is that… he was like that because of other monsters. What Naruto brought out in him at the end wasn’t something that had never existed before.” Haku took a shaky breath. “So, no. It wasn’t… good. When I think of someone like you, or Naruto, in that place, I cannot think it would be right. But it was not the dark, evil place you’re thinking of.” 

“That sounds like you’re trying to trick yourself.”

“Yeah,” Haku muttered. “What else can I do?” Sasuke didn’t answer him, but he held his hand out for a slice of an apple. Haku gave him the whole plate.

“Naruto will be back before you know it,” Umino said that evening. “I got word from a friend at an outpost by the edges of the territory.”

“What was the word?”

“That he’d be back before I knew it. I assume the measurement applies to you too.”

Haku laughed, taking a wet dish from Umino’s hand and drying it. “It’s so boring here without him.”

“Ungrateful?”

Haku, used to Umino’s sharp, sly sense of humor, only nodded. “Yes.”

Naruto really was back before he knew it, and according to the messenger, he had apparently run right to the hospital to see Sasuke and Sakura. A little jealous in a petty, silly way, Haku put away the reports he’d offered to help Umino sort through and went to meet him there. He walked right into an irate Sakura, who glared at him reproachfully.

“This is your fault,” she snapped.

Haku, used to her slightly temperamental ways, took this in stride. “What did he do?”

“What _didn’t_ he do? He came back crowing about his new, super strong jutsu, and now Sasuke won’t rest until he’s had a chance to fight him. They’re going to get themselves killed.”

“What, now?”

“No, apparently it’s not a fair fight right now, since Sasuke got to train with you and Naruto didn’t. He’s throwing a fit.”

“Who? Sasuke?”

“Naruto, duh. Jealousy.”

“Naruto never once said he wanted to train with me,” Haku huffed. “As soon as Sasuke gets a new toy—”

“Yeah, exactly. They’re in the usual room,” Sakura pointed. “I’m not going to sit around waiting for them to stop glaring, though. I hear the new Hokage’s a healer.”

“Yes,” Haku said, surprised at the change in topic. “She’s one of the legendary Sannin, however, I wouldn’t call her a healer alone.”

Sakura shrugged. “She heals, and she does it well. She says she’s going to operate on Lee.”

“That’s wonderful news,” Haku smiled. “I’m sure Mr. Gai is very pleased to hear that.”

“It’s a risky operation,” Sakura said bitterly. “Lee says he doesn’t mind dying if it comes down to it. Can you believe that?”

“Sakura?”

“Just one bone in his spine, and his whole life falls apart. What if we had never found Tsunade? Then what?”

Sakura’s face was alight with something, it was almost rage. “What if your injuries that time had been _bad_.” She shook her head, her jaw tight. “What if they were as bad as they had been the first time? The time on the bridge?”

“Sakura…”

“I just don’t think we can survive anything the way we are now. I couldn’t even help you _this_ time, and you weren’t even bleeding! If we’re going to be a team, we need to find these cracks. They need to _see_ that _, but they don’t_. They just sit around shouting and yelling and—” She sighed.

“Sorry, Haku. It’s just. Sometimes I don’t really feel like part of a team. Ino’s team is better than ours. Hell, even Hinata’s team is better off, and they have Sasuke and Naruto 2.0. They work together, they know each other’s strengths. I’m just dead weight to those two.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Haku whispered, horrified and thrown off balance by the turn of the conversation.

“It is true,” she said. “I don’t want you to try and make me feel better. Sorry, Haku. I’m just venting. You’re surprisingly easy to talk to. It’s because you’re so polite. I yell at you, and you try and make me feel better.”

Haku watched her walk away, torn between following, trying to talk to her until she smiled again, and going to see Naruto. She made the decision for him, in the end.

“Go. Naruto is excited to see you. I want to be alone right now.”

“So, which of us do you want to spar with?”

“Sasuke, I thought we agreed I’d be fighting you both at once.”

Naruto levelled a glare at Sasuke. “Wow, you’re a little rat.”

“Naruto,” Haku warned.

“Sorry, he’s just such a _jerk_.”

Sasuke shrugged, unashamed. “You didn’t ask about that, you just asked to spar Haku and I told you I already had, twice.”

“That is _not_ how the conversation went, you _jerk_.”

Haku carried on peeling more apples and sliding them over to Naruto, who inhaled each one like he hasn’t eaten in days. He might not have, come to think of it. “That’s an interesting necklace, Naruto,” Haku said when he noticed it under Naruto’s jacket, hoping a little that it would distract Naruto from glaring at Sasuke. “Where did you get it?”

“Tsunade,” Naruto said proudly, easily distracted. “It was the first Hokage’s, which is fitting, because I’m going to be Hokage _next_.”

“She’s a descendant of the First, isn’t she?” Sasuke asked. “She’s probably really strong.”

Naruto, disappointed that he had not made Sasuke blindly jealous, pouted. “She’s fine, I guess. She’s a drunkard, though.”

“Naruto!”

“What? It’s true!”

“Do you think she’d take me on as a student if I asked?” Sasuke looked deep in thought. “I want to learn more jutsu, and I don’t think Kakashi has many more to teach me.”

“What? No. She’d take me on as a student over you,” Naruto smirked. “She adores me.”

Haku stood, deciding this entire conversation was bound to run itself into several walls before it got anywhere. “I think I shall go check on Sakura; she seemed upset last I saw her.”

“What?” Sasuke looked up with a look of confusion. “About what?”

“You need to pay attention to her and to each other. You’re behaving absolutely terribly as a team. Haven’t you tried to compare yourself to the others? Were the exams a game to you?”

Sasuke bit his lip, looking truly ashamed of himself, but Naruto puffed up in indignation, never one to take criticism at face value. “What the hell, Haku? Where’d that come from?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m just horrified that after everything that’s happened, you haven’t even asked Sasuke how he’s feeling.”

_“I did!”_

Sasuke nodded, slowly. “He did, actually.”

“Oh,” Haku blinked. “My apologies, Naruto.”

Naruto frowned. “We might not be like, friendly, but we do care about each other.”

“I went to face my brother _and_ save Naruto.”

“I fought Gaara to keep Sakura _and_ Sasuke safe.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that,” Sasuke snapped, his previous half-hearted attempt at friendliness forgotten.

“Yeah,” Naruto shot back in a rude voice, “well, you weren’t in much shape to ask for anything, were you? You’re lucky I came along to protect you.”

Sasuke’s face darkened, but it was not the darkening Haku feared. Huh. _Maybe,_ he thought, _they need a common enemy after all._

“Well, I’m not totally convinced of your abilities as a team, to be completely transparent. I do not believe you can withstand adversity, nor stick together adequately. I believe Sakura and I are in agreement.” Naruto gaped at him, and Haku fought the guilt of disappointing him to say: “You may prove me wrong, of course, if you ever become strong enough to break free of my castle.”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed. “That shark man broke free of it.”

“Brute strength,” Haku said lightly, flipping his hair over his shoulder. “Something neither of you possess. You shall have to put your heads together and _endeavor_ to think.”

Sasuke looked at Naruto like Haku’s bizarre behavior was all his fault. “ _You_ get Sakura, then. We’ll probably need her.”

Afterwards, Haku would look to that conversation and thank whatever being, whim, or power that had put that thought in his head. It was while the team was planning Haku’s destruction, on their favorite bridge, that the infiltrating shinobi of the Sound made a return to the village.

He did curse himself, for not being there, for not thinking to look out for them. But it was in this way that the three were able to survive the onslaught of attacks, to anchor Sasuke against his self-doubt, and to raise enough of a fuss that everyone in the village knew that there had been an attack. Unfortunately, the shinobi were not on orders to pick it all up and leave politely if Sasuke declined their offer.

The alarm sounded and Haku was summoned to the scene, where Sakura was diligently healing a wound on her own stomach.

“Where’s Naruto?”

She looked up with a dark expression. Pain. “I sent him to the Hokage in order to get a team together.”

“And he _listened?_ ”

“I screamed at him a little. It’s fine.” She focused on her own wound again. “I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, since I have no actual training, but I figure I can—Hey!”

Haku stepped forward and kneeled on the ground before her to inspect the wound. “It’s not too deep, and it’s closing nicely. What did that?”

“Some idiot,” she said through clenched teeth. “Just a few more minutes. I think it should be fine.”

“I can’t condone this,” he said, but indeed within only a minute, the wound was merely a cut. Sakura let out a deep breath and bound it tightly, accepting Haku’s hand when he offered it.

“What do you think will happen?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding her age for the first time since he arrived. “I’m so tired.”

“You probably should sit this one out. You’ve done well, but anymore and you might go too far.”

Sakura scowled, her hands around her middle. “I’m still falling behind.”

“That’s a worry for another time. Right now, Sasuke needs us.”

“I have to ask: did he go willingly, or was he taken?”

“He was taken,” Naruto shouted. “Why does everyone doubt that?”

“Naruto,” Tsunade snapped. “Calm down. It makes a lot of difference. We can summon more reserves to retrieve him, in that case, without the headaches. It’s a rescue mission, in that case.”

Naruto met Sakura’s gaze, Haku saw, but they did not say anything. They seemed to agree on something between them, however, because then Naruto spoke.

“We need to get together a team as soon as possible,” he said. “I don’t think we can afford to lose time.”

Tsunade leaned back in her chair, smiling. “I have a team,” she said. “I am loathe to leave this mission entirely up to genin, however. Haku.”

“Yes, Hokage?”

“You’d best go with them. I’ll send reinforcements behind you. Sakura, are you well enough to go? Honor over glory, remember.”

Sakura nodded, like this meant something, and Haku realized that someone may have beaten Sasuke and Naruto to Tsunade’s mentorship. “I am.”

“The rest of your team will meet you at the gates.” Tsunade jerked her head towards the doors. “Go.”

“Do we split up?”

Shikamaru looked at Sakura in horror. “Absolutely not yet. We plan an ambush, if we follow the river, we might be able to intercept them. If that fails, we just pick ‘em off, one by one. Naruto?”

“On it,” Naruto smirked. He and Shikamaru disappeared ahead, and the only trace of them was an annoyed grumble from Shikamaru.

“Listen, you _will_ follow orders, all right? Don’t go rushing in to play hero.”

Haku did not hear Naruto’s response, but he had faith. That left him, Sakura, Kiba, and Neji to deal with the ramifications if the others failed. But the image Shikamaru had painted was simple enough. If the ambush failed, then they’d be able to circle back and serve as their team’s own reinforcements.

Haku had to admit, it was quite genius. He could not fault the council for graduating Nara Shikamaru over the rest.

The sun rose on Shikamaru’s genjutsu, not unlike the one he had constructed for the Sound shinobi in the forests, the one Haku had passed over and used as a backwards signpost. It worked and it didn’t; it bought them time and the advantage of the first attack. However, they did not account for the Sound’s reinforcements. The split forced Haku and Naruto ahead, with Sakura not far behind them, and the others to their own opponents. Despite his best efforts, Shikamaru’s team was forced to split up in the end.

“It’s not possible,” Haku gasped, peering into the castle from one of his mirrors. “No human—” He felt nauseous at the sight of the man trapped between the mirrors. None of his senbon were landing, the enemy shinobi’s skin was… _wrong._ Everything about his anatomy was wrong.

Naruto shook the strange coffin that the Sound shinobi had sealed Sasuke within, knocking on the lid and trying to lift it to no avail. “Can you hold him any longer?”

“No,” Haku said, desperately hiding his terror. One of the mirrors began to crack. That man, inside the ice, he wasn’t _human_ anymore. “Naruto. I need you to run.”

“But Sasuke—”

“Leave Sasuke, I need you to _go_.”

Naruto opened his mouth to say something, but whatever it was it was drowned in the crashing sound of ice, horrible and beautiful at once, familiar and terrible, too. Kimimaro stood in the wreckage, his own femur in hand, eyes trained on Haku with death written into every crevice of his face.

“I failed my master once; I will never do so again,” he said. “You,” the bone was level with Haku’s face now, “will die here.”

Haku, his power drained into the crashing ice and stored in the shards, shook. This was the great sacrifice of his Bloodline Limit. The mirrors would hold, but if they did not, then all his strength went with them. “Naruto—!”

But something happened before Haku could finish his command. One moment, Kimimaro was ready to kill him with a sharpened bone that he’d pulled out of his own body, the next he was bracing himself against a new opponent’s attack.

“Lee!” Naruto cried, and he seemed to want to say something else, but at that moment, the coffin’s lid lifted. “Sasuke?”

Haku took this distraction as an opportunity to siphon his energy back from the castle, from the crushed ice, but whatever had happened wasn’t a good enough distraction, for something pierced his leg. He fell into the grass, onto his own mirrors, and desperately tried to reach for what it was that had sunk into him. It was bone, obviously, but it was buried deep.

“Miss Haku!” the boy named Lee called out. “Please, leave this opponent to me, the Handsome Devil of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. I will protect you.”

Haku stared, pain almost forgotten. “I’m not—”

“Lee?” Naruto interrupted. “This guy is insanely tough—” But the one named Lee held his arm out, a single thumbs-up a very clear message. Haku recognized him. This was Gai’s student—the boy who had been brought to the hospital, bleeding out on a gurney, crushed by sand.

“Go.” Lee looked determined, his eyes only on his opponent. “Sasuke needs you now. I can handle this.”

“Protect Haku, all right?”

“With my life, Naruto.”

At that, Haku forced himself off the ice, siphoning what he could through the fogginess, and saw that Sasuke was gone. No sound but a dark cackle and Naruto’s shouts gave any clue as to where they might have gone. Cursing, he tried to break the ice apart himself, but with his energy stored in the ice, he could not summon it out quick enough, and he was bleeding steadily into the grass. His hair covered his face, and his strength was not even enough to move it out of his eyes.

“Haku?” a voice whispered. “It’s me. Are you going to be all right?”

Sakura. Haku leaned back against the fallen mirror, breathing heavily, and he nodded. “Go,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happened to Sasuke, but he’s going to need you too. I think it was that mark—”

“Honor over glory, remember?” Sakura hissed. “Are you really fine right now? You’re bleeding. You look terrible.”

 _Oh, Sakura. Honor and glory aren’t the same for everyone._ “Yes,” he said, choosing honor over glory, even though he could barely muster the strength to move his hair out of his face. “Go.”

“I trust you,” she said, and then she was gone.

Haku tilted his head back, unable to watch what was happening in front of him. Instead, he focused on absorbing the castle. When the ice was gone, he was able to focus on the battle in front of him. Lee had done a really good job of distracting Kimimaro, if Sakura had come and gone, and if Haku himself had not been killed the entire time he sat here, weakened beyond belief, barely able to lift his head. He ought to return the favor, though he was not sure he would be much use now.

Haku stood, intent on helping his new ally in his fight, but what he saw before him stopped him cold. Was Lee— _Did Lee just declare, in the middle of the field, that he felt kind of funny, and then fall asleep?_

Horrified, Haku watched as Kimimaro approached the boy in the grass. He should do something—Could he get there fast enough? Could Haku possibly move quickly enough now, after all that, to save the boy who had apparently—

Lee leapt up at the last moment, most dishonorably, and caught Kimimaro by surprise. Haku let out a breath he’d been holding and let the final mirror behind him fall away. He should step in, and yet—

Lee did it again. And again, Kimimaro approached curiously to inspect the prone, sleeping form of his opponent, and again, he was taken by surprise when Lee leapt from the grass. Trusting that this would at least be a pattern, Haku settled in and waited, gathering his strength, waiting for an opportunity, or a need, to step in. It never came.

Gaara arrived first, before Haku could even try to drag himself up to stand and fight, Gaara was there.

For a split second, Haku despaired. He would die here, and Naruto and Sakura would blame themselves—

But that was not to be.

“Miss Haku?” Lee approached him. “Do I have your permission to touch you?”

“I’m a man.” Haku sighed, the pain making him a little cold. “Take your time with it. But in the meantime, could we get these bones out of me? Not my bones, his bones.”

Lee stuttered, stumbling over apologies, but Gaara immediately began to draw the bone shrapnel out with his sand. It was a truly awful sensation, but at least this way Haku could heal himself safely. “Gaara,” Haku began. “You appear to be well.”

“I am… trying. I am learning. Are you the one Naruto spoke of, the one he loves?”

“One of them,” Haku muttered as Lee blushed. “I am grateful, every day, that I am counted among anyone he loves.”

“I… too had someone once. I am fortunate that my siblings have not abandoned me since that time.”

“They are loyal,” Haku agreed kindly. “And you deserve a second chance. No one deserves to live the way-- The way some people have lived.”

Lee blinked. “I suppose it was loneliness in the end that ruined Kimimaro.” He gazed up at the corpse where it was suspended over their heads still. “All that suffering for someone as monstrous as Orochimaru.”

“Loneliness is such a dark, horrible place,” Gaara said, surprising Haku out of his contemplation, “that I think if one found an escape, even with one such as Orochimaru, they would be unable to resist it.”

“So, we’re all walking that knife’s edge between Kimimaro and Naruto?” Lee shuddered. “I have my teacher, but I suppose, if I were not to have him, I would have become a pitiful person.”

“Yes,” Gaara said. “Perhaps.”

Haku had to agree that it seemed that way. What had he said, after Temari had met his gaze in that forest? All their stories, reflecting off each other, it was no coincidence. This life bred monsters, and sometimes the monsters found each other and kept each other whole.

“Shall we head back to Konoha?” Lee asked. “Unless, Haku, you wish to continue on ahead?”

Haku looked to the forest, on the other side of the sea of bones and sharpened thorns, to where his friends had disappeared. It had been a long time since Sakura left him.

Either Sasuke was safe, or he wasn’t. There was nothing he could do at this point but be there for whoever made it out the other end. 

“Yes,” Haku decided, finally, giving in and admitting that he had been unable to keep up with the genin after all, “but I may need some help. I don’t have much strength.” Haku looked out over the calcified bones of the earth, sharpened to points and arching into the sky. "I don't believe I can cross that."

“I have a relevant question,” Lee began to say as he balanced Haku atop the sand Gaara summoned for this purpose.

“Go on,” Haku said, charmed by Lee’s direct nature. He was really so much like his teacher. The mound of sand began to move slowly, tentatively, and then with purpose. Haku smiled at Gaara, again, and thanked him. He received no response besides a polite nod.

“Would we get infected with whatever made Kimimaro ill?” Lee asked. “Would _you?_ You had his bones in you. _”_

“I doubt it,” Haku said with a shudder. “It seems like he was permitted to be up and about, I’d say that points towards an illness that isn’t contagious. It might be associated with his Bloodline Limit.”

Lee stroked his chin in thought, and they continued moving. Haku, floating on the sand by Gaara’s head, and Lee in step.

“I believe I owe you an apology,” Lee said, blushing slightly. Haku sighed.

“No, don’t worry about it. It was not insulting.”

“If you’re sure,” Lee said in a tentative voice. “I really—I didn’t mean anything badly by it.”

“Nonsense. It’s actually flattering to be mistaken for a girl.” Haku smiled serenely, delighting in Lee’s frantic blush.

Gaara looked between them, his forehead furrowed. “What?”

“Nothing,” Lee said quickly. “Gaara, tell me, how has your village fared since the surrender?”

Gaara blinked at Lee, a little owlishly, and hesitantly began to explain his village’s state now that their Kazekage, his father, was gone.

“How is Temari?” Haku met Gaara’s eyes, but Gaara looked away immediately.

“She spoke highly of you. She is here too, as is Kankuro. You will see them, with luck, when we return you home.”

“I see. She was ready to do anything to make sure you were safe; I was very impressed by her determination to keep you and your brother alive.”

Blushing, Gaara manipulated the sand so that Haku was behind him. “I thank you. You speak kindly, but I do not deserve it. I caused you both much grief.”

“You are just _so_ different now,” Lee said in wonder, “it’s so strange. I must ask, forgive me, but how have your siblings reacted to this change?”

Gaara walked faster, leaving Lee with a look of true confusion. “Gaara? Gaara, I have more questions, if you would not mind slowing down a little?”

Gaara did not slow down, not for a while.

“What a trip that must have been,” Umino said when they arrived. The rest of the team had apparently either arrived or had sent word that they would be back as planned. Haku was too nervous to ask what he wanted to ask, so he waited for Umino to give up the game and just tell him. “The three of you are rather eerily alike, you know?”

Haku looked up at Umino, waiting for an explanation. When none came, he said: “I do not know.”

“You’re all so polite and formal; old fashioned, even,” Umino smiled, resting his head on his hand and leaning against the railing in front of the apartment. “Tell me, how many ‘beg your pardons’ were said over the course of the journey?”

“Be quiet. A few, perhaps.” Haku took a step up the stairs. “Where’s Naruto?”

Umino’s smile disappeared. Haku froze.

“Where is he? Where’s Sasuke?” Haku took another step forward, horror building under his skin like ice. “Sakura?”

Umino gestured to the door. “You had better come inside,” he said. “I promised— You have to come inside for this.”

Shaking, Haku followed Umino into the apartment, his heart in his mouth and his mouth dry. Something hit him in the chest as soon as he stepped foot in the doorway, and he sighed with relief when he realized it was Naruto.

Umino laughed. “I’m so sorry, Haku. He made me swear to get you here as soon as I saw you. I was under oath.”

“Liar,” Haku muttered. “You’re as much of a demon as Naruto. You relish pranks.”

“I do,” Umino said. “Even distasteful ones. I’ll go heat up lunch, all right?”

Naruto rubbed his face into Haku’s haori, like he had the first time this sort of thing had happened.

“Is this our new tradition?” Haku asked, burying his hands in Naruto's hair

“I just wish I had done it when I saw you after I got back _last_ time. I regretted not doing it. You nearly died, and then I just let it all go the second Sasuke asked for a fight.”

Haku stroked Naruto’s hair back, holding him tighter than he had ever done before. He pressed a kiss to Naruto’s head, finally, unable to contain himself.

“You’re leaving me behind, Naruto,” he said. “Please, tell me what’s happened.”

“Sasuke’s here,” Naruto said. “The curse mark was making him crazy, so he’s in the hospital now. It—it wasn’t too bad. It made him want to fight me, and it made him think _weird_ things. Like how I was out to kill him, and beat him, and stuff.”

“Stuff,” Haku echoed.

“Yeah. He was pretty mad about how powerful the rasengan was. But Sakura and I got him to think, at least, and at least now we know the sort of stuff he’s thinking. But the curse mark was pretty bad. We ended up putting him back in the coffin to bring him back. It’s a seal on its own, somehow. Sakura reattached all the tags and wrote some of her own. By the way, is it really true that Lee is in love with you?”

Haku lifted his eyes to the ceiling, a movement and a sight that he had become very familiar with in his time with Naruto.

“Naruto, gossip isn’t an honorable thing to engage in.”

“Oh, that’s not gossip. He was saying so pretty loudly, just now outside.”

Haku blinked. “Outside?”

“Yeah, Gai does the same thing sometimes. They do this thing where they cry their love at the top of their lungs? Hah, you should see your face.”

“Oh, you’re joking?” Haku sighed.

“No, but your face is funny. You look awful. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so bad. Not even when you were dead.” Haku blinked, slightly offended. Naruto hugged him one last time before running to the kitchen, the smell of food filling the small apartment and drawing Haku in too. There was a knock on the door, halfway through the meal, and Naruto went to see who it was. He came back with Sakura, who stayed the night.

There was barely any room. Haku thought back to his plans to buy a place of his own, eventually, and Sasuke’s protective outrage on Naruto’s behalf.

Sighing, he tucked Sakura and Naruto in, went to the bathroom to shower (he did look terrible; for possibly the first time in memory, he looked _terrible)_ , and then he and Umino left the apartment and walked the short distance to Umino’s own.

There, he saw Kakashi, which wasn’t that much of a surprise, and Gai, which was a surprise. They were drinking.

“Ah, the beloved of my young pupil!” Gai cheered when he saw Haku.

Haku turned to Umino, who shrugged and took up a small cup of sake and sat beside Gai.

“I’m sixteen,” Haku said. “I am going to bed.”

Umino smiled proudly. “Good! That’s the reason I brought you here. No drinking for you.”

Haku went in the direction he was pointed but paused at the doorway before making his exit. “I… want to say something.” He turned to the strange trio. “If you would not mind.”

Might Gai gestured gallantly for Haku to go ahead, but Kakashi only leaned back, training his one visible eye on Haku without a word.

“Please keep it down,” he said. “I am very tired.” And disappeared into the bedroom. He fell asleep as his head hit the pillow, into a dreamless sleep where the roar of laughter that followed his request did not follow.

Everything was going to change, Haku knew. He felt it, like he had that first time he woke up, with the phantom hand around his. There were dangerous people after Naruto, and now they were after Sasuke too. The mission was a success, but barely; and their teammates were not out of danger. Neji was in surgery, and so was Kiba. And Sasuke’s state was unknown.

Tsunade seemed confident that everything would be fine, and it was becoming clear that it was a terrible fate that Sasuke had narrowly avoided. But the changes were barely beginning.

On the first day that Sasuke opened his eyes to clarity, the Sage Jiraiya informed Naruto that it was paramount to leave the village. The Akatsuki were on his trail, and a stationary life would doom not only Naruto but those who protected him.

Haku sat by Naruto’s side during this, barely able to process the words. Naruto said nothing, but no one else said anything either. A hand slipped into his, and he knew it was Sakura’s. He squeezed it quietly and waited for Naruto to say _something._

“Well,” Sasuke said, surprising everyone. Haku looked to Sasuke, sitting up in bed finally for the first time in days, and saw something very surprising: a smile. “Haku, you can give up on buying a place around here for now.”

The Sage groaned. “No, no, I did not extend an invitation to _any_ of you. I’m a loner, all right? I don’t _deal_ with more than one kid at a time.”

“That’s why Haku is coming with you. He’s so much more like a grown up than a kid,” Sakura said firmly, taking Sasuke’s side without pause. “This way you can all help Naruto avoid the Akatsuki, and we can all get stronger, even if it’s not together.”

“No,” Jiraiya said. “I can’t help _you_. You’re Tsunade’s student, I don’t know the first thing about—”

“I know. Well, no, you’re lying, because you’re selfish. But that’s why I said _you_. I will be here, studying under Tsunade.”

Haku smiled. He did not let go of her hand; she probably needed the strength.

“Sakura…”

“Naruto,” she sighed. “Keeping you safe is the most important thing. Getting stronger is good too, but the Pervert Sage brings up a good point. Being here in Konoha isn’t the safest place anymore. The invasion cut our forces down, and the shift from Hokage to Hokage is historically a period of unrest and some weakness. A moving target is harder to hit, remember?”

The Sage stared at her, unable to even protest the nickname. “You… You’re smart. Tell you what, I take it back. You come, Sasuke stays.”

Sasuke threw an apple core, which had become something of a habit since they were usually readily available (Haku visited often). “No,” he said darkly. “ _I’m_ training with the Sage.”

“Of course.” Sakura smiled sweetly, sidestepping his newfound competitiveness with ease. “But when you two come back, you’ll know all each other’s moves, but you’ll be blindsided by mine. It’s a tactical thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Hey, I didn’t agree—”

Naruto interrupted the Sage, reaching out for Sakura’s other hand. “Are you sure? We can leave Haku with you, if you want. He’d be good company.”

Haku raised his eyebrows at Naruto, who winced. “I wouldn’t do it happily,” he mumbled. “But Sakura needs someone too.”

“No,” Sakura sighed. “Lee will never get anything done if Haku stays. It is for the best that Haku leave as soon as possible, before all of Konoha is subjected to three AM marriage proposals.”

“He’s not that bad,” Haku dissembled. “He’s just infatuated right now. That’s all.”

“It’s pretty awful,” Sasuke muttered. “We’d be doing Konoha two favors if we left.”

“All right, so it’s decided?” Naruto looked between the three of them.

The Sage groaned, digging his fingers into his eyes. “Fine, fine. I see it’s a hopeless cause separating these three. But I will _not_ be funding the care and keeping of anyone but Naruto. You two have your own money, right?”

Haku tapped his chin thoughtfully. “I can’t remember.”

Sasuke only shrugged.

Haku joined them on the bridge when Sasuke was well enough to leave the hospital. Before that, they had congregated in his room until exasperated healers had shooed them and looked beseechingly at Sakura, who should know better.

It was a beautiful night, and the moon was a beautiful light in the sky over the water. Haku had been on this bridge a few times, but he never understood just how precious it was to these three until that night. They did not converse easily, or laugh; there were no jokes, nor teasing. They simply sat together on the railing, and Haku tried to wrap his mind around how things had changed.

Was it really only a few months ago that he had tried to kill Naruto? The thought sent him down a terrible spiral, because a few months ago, Zabuza had been alive. Haku hadn’t known Naruto existed. His life had been simple: what Zabuza envisioned, Haku executed. Where Zabuza went, Haku followed. What Haku needed to learn, Zabuza taught. His whole world had begun and ended with Zabuza. And it had, in the end, ended with Zabuza.

He couldn’t help it, he let his head drop to Naruto’s shoulder.

“I’m so glad I’m not dead,” he sighed. “And that you didn’t kill me.”

Naruto tensed. “Yeah. Me too.”

“I’m glad I didn’t end up Orochimaru’s meat suit,” Sasuke said grimly. “If we’re talking about things that we’re glad about. But there are probably a lot more people like Kimimaro and me out there, who need help.”

Haku sighed in relief, glad that Sasuke’s world had broadened, rather than constricted into itself. His goodness was there, it was just buried under fear, pain, and loneliness.

“I wish I could go with you guys,” Sakura said quietly. “But I’m glad I’ve finally found something I’m good at. I feel like… My whole life, there’s been this version of me in my head. She was more honest and more real, and now I’m a little bit more like her.”

“Where is Kakashi?” Naruto asked, after the silence of Sakura’s words. “I feel like he’s just disappeared.”

“He’s probably busy,” Sasuke said. “Do you think… if the Sage hadn’t offered…”

“No,” Sakura said. “Kakashi? Roam the earth with you? He’d be—”

“Late?”

Haku whirled around, and indeed, there, atop a pillar, was Kakashi. His expression was, as always, unreadable. “I was late. I didn’t realize this was a _spot_ for you kids.” He appeared before them, suddenly, and his single visible eye seemed a little sad. “I feel like you’ve done most of your growing up without me.” He looked at Haku. “But then I also feel like you swapped me in for a younger, cuter version.”

“Hey!” Sakura laughed. “Haku is way more honorable than you! He’s his own thing.”

“I, for one,” Kakashi said, ignoring the jab, “am also glad that Haku is alive. And that he’ll be going off to see the world with…” He began to count on his fingers, “a perverted old man, a bratty danger magnet, and another bratty danger magnet, but blond.”

Haku chuckled. “You would rather not come along,” he said. “I know you wouldn’t. You have a vested interest in remaining in the village now.”

“Yes,” Kakashi said. “I suppose now that you’ve seen me drinking you think you know all my secrets.”

“At least one of your secrets was in that room,” Haku smiled.

“Uh,” Naruto interrupted. “I have understood none of this. But I like the sound of it. Kakashi, are you really all right with me and Sasuke going off with the Pervert Sage?”

“You really shouldn’t call your teacher things like that,” Kakashi said. “But yes, of course I am. Don’t you dare come back until you can get those bells off of me. Mark of shame will be making Haku your fourth teammate, just to keep your heads over the water.”

“You’ll take care of Iruka while I’m gone?”

“He can take care of himself,” Kakashi said. When that didn’t satisfy Naruto’s glare, Kakashi nodded impatiently. “All right, ok, fine; I’ll keep an eye on the demon teacher. Any other requests?”

Sasuke surprised Haku by speaking up. “Could you take another team, while we’re gone?”

“What?”

Sasuke cleared his throat, stalling. “I just… I think it’d be good… if we were training, and focusing on getting stronger, that you’d be training too. But training at, uh, being our teacher.”

Kakashi stared at Sasuke. “All right," he said weakly. "I’ll… I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll be around,” Sakura pointed out, “so it’ll be my job to hold him to it. I’ll still be an active genin, after all. We just need two more members. Maybe I should tell Tsunade to consider it. There's bound to be someone out there who needs a team.”

“If Haku stays—”

“Absolutely not,” Haku interrupted, disturbed by Naruto’s second attempt to leave him behind. “I am going with you, Naruto. You cannot leave me here. This isn’t my home, not without you.”

Sakura patted Haku’s shoulder lightly as Haku took a breath and met Naruto’s guilty stare head on.

“Ok,” she said. “Two members more it is. Team 7 will not disband.”

“Anyone you want to say goodbye to, you have today to do it. Jiraiya is quite strict about his departure. He’s taking this really seriously, shockingly.”

“Are the Sand shinobi still here?”

“Yes,” Tsunade said. “I hate to pry, but Lee is also going to require some delicate… handling.”

Haku looked out the window, where the boy in question was sparring with Gaara of the Sand. He looked like he was working out some feelings. After a moment, Tsunade left, but Haku didn’t move. He watched them all on the training grounds, waiting for a moment to descend and say hello.

It was difficult; had Kankuro and Temari always looked so—Frightening? How was it that they were more frightening than _Gaara?_

Finally, the spar let up, so Haku was left without an excuse. He called out to Gaara and Lee, taking a moment to note that Lee’s smile seemed too big for his own face.

At least Sasuke had grown out of that awkward crush. Rather quickly, too.

“Haku,” Gaara greeted. “I have heard the news. I look forward to our paths crossing again—”

“I will become strong in your absence,” Lee said meaningfully.

Haku blinked. “You’re plenty strong.”

“Stronger,” Lee muttered. “Uh. If I do not, I will run around the village one thousand times. Carrying coals.”

“Hot coals?” Haku asked. Lee nodded proudly. “Please do not.”

Temari approached him during this, quietly and with a nervous expression. Her confidence seemed to fall away around him, probably because he had seen her at her worst. “I suppose this is goodbye, for now.”

Haku held his hand out, and was grateful when she took it, grasping it firmly. “I will see you again, Temari. Take care of them.”

Temari smiled. “Of course. Thank you, again.”

Saying goodbye to Iruka and Sakura was harder.

He walked them all the way to the gates, holding Naruto’s hand and trying not to cry. Sakura did not come that far, already crying long before they left Naruto’s apartment. She had clung to Naruto and Sasuke, sobbing, hugged Haku quickly, and then cursed them all out and ran for it.

“Please, _please_ , don’t cry,” Naruto pleaded, clinging to Iruka’s middle. “If you cry, I won’t go. I’ll just stay here, and when the Akatsuki come to get me I’ll just let them.”

This did not help Iruka ward off the tears, in fact, it seemed to break the dam. Iruka gripped Naruto tightly through it, even as Naruto sniffled a little too. “Just stay safe, ok? Train hard and take _care of yourself_.”

“I’ll make sure that he does, Iruka,” Haku swore. Iruka let go of Naruto to pull Haku into a hug too. It was the first time Haku had ever been hugged by someone who wasn’t a child; he hadn’t been held like that since his mother was alive, since before his father went mad with fear. “I’m on his side,” Haku whispered into Iruka’s shoulder. “Remember?”

“Thank goodness, I'm so glad that you’ve stopped calling me Mr. Umino,” Iruka whispered. “Yes, I remember.”

“Thank you,” Haku said, and then let him go.

Naruto waved until Iruka was naught but a speck in the distance, sobbing, and no one made fun of him. Finally, he turned around, his hand slipping into Haku’s.

“When we come back, I’ll get that house,” Haku said, squeezing Naruto’s hand and then releasing it so he could run ahead and bother Jiraiya.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jiraiya grumbled, stepping around Naruto’s bouncing excitement. “And it’ll be a great, big no grown-up allowed treehouse in the forest, and no one will ever have to pick between snacks and dessert—I get it.”

“He’s jealous.” Haku smiled, meeting Sasuke’s quietly mirthful gaze and ignoring Jiraiya’s grumbling. “On account of him being a no-good grown-up.”

The trees overhead were more familiar than not, and even though he had not been in Leaf country long, they were comforting and they felt like home. It did not feel like he was leaving home, not at all, for home was a few paces ahead, loud and bubbling with mirth, but it did feel like goodbye.

The road opened up ahead and the birds sang over his head, the wind passed through his hair, and he thought that perhaps, since he would be on the road again, a change might be in order. Two years was enough time to grow it all back if he didn’t like it short, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos mean a lot, and I genuinely hope you enjoyed this monster.


End file.
